Erling Haaland | Dortmund player
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Fans like to blame agents because it allows them to not have to point a finger at a player they may like, instead just palming off all the blame on the agent. With the exception of those shady agencies that have those deals where they literally control where a player goes, like with Falcao, agents always act on the wishes of their clients. Usually this goes against what fans of said club may want, like a transfer away, so again, it's much easier to point a finger at the agent rather than accept that this is just what the player wants, and the agent is acting on their wishes. Someone posted a list a while back that showed Raiola has quite a few clients who have stayed put at their clubs, like Hamsik for example.
The disdain for agents is quite weird on the whole. Without them you would have clubs taking advantage of players left, right and center. In an area like football where there's so much money involved, players need good agents to get what they're worth. It's not hard to see it that way if you put yourself in the shoes of a player, rather than just thinking as a fan. There's a reason why agents like Raiola, who do whatever it takes to get what their client wants, are so popular.
Yeah, those are exactly my thoughts. After all, players are usually still very young and more often than not not that educated. And the club representatives they're negotiating with are most often seasoned business.
Plain and simple, there's simply no other way for players to get their fair share without engaging such agents. Of course there are some who go farther than others are willing to do in order to see through their clients' interests, like Raiola, but it's no different the other way round.
It's clear that there are some black sheep among them who really try to manipulate players into signing contracts that are most benefitial to the agents themselves but I don't believe you can get to the top by doing that. Raiola isn't the one putting ideas in the player's head, he's the one to put through the ones which are already there. And if that means there will be scorched earth, so be it. Would be exactly the type of agent I'd want as a professional football player.
We’re not the ones who should feel bad about this. He was never going to come here at this point in time, rightly so. Other clubs who could have got him didn’t show any interest.
Interesting post.
To be honest, I barely knew anything about Raiola until last days when I started to enquire a little bit. From what I've seen, these tactics might be the best for his players in the short term. However, buying clubs seem to have grown distrust of Raiola as well due to his manoeuvres when offering his players in Europe. I don't think that goes in the benefit of those other players of him not being directly involved with the moves.
So yes, Raiola will make the best out of the players' bargaining position at some point, but perhaps with a cost for some other of his clients, whom clubs might refuse to approach in the future due to their agent annoying tactics.
I don't know if you are aware of Dortmunds recent history, but the club was basically bankrupt 15 years ago and a far cry from being on par with anyone. Reason for that bankruptcy was that we signed players for more money than we had and started selling goods like the stadium to investors. When there were no goods left to sell, BVB imploded.
We had a bit of luck and some exceptional decisions.
1. Aki Watzke the leader of the club managed to steer the club into safe financial waters, everything expensive had to go.
2. 3 years after the breakdown we signed Juergen Klopp, the television coach who was way too casual for other clubs that did not like his appearance.
3. Even though Klopp carried us to new heights, it was a big problem that we could match the financial power of other clubs, so we had our best players taken from us again and again. Huge example was Mario Götze who was basically valued as the next Messi and who transferred to Bayern via exit clause, which was by far lower than his market value. Here the leaders of the club decided to never accept exit clauses any more.
4. Our first money went into paying off debt and it took nine years till we finally paid the last bit
5. The next money went into infrastructure. BVB has one of the best scouting and training teams soccer has to offer. Even top players that have seen other big clubs are impressed about our infrastructure.
6. Now we started paying more money for our top players, but it was still not enough. We lost Hummels, Mhkitaryan, Gündogan in one season and that was a huge throwback for us.
7. Luckily we also invested heavily into the future of soccer: big talent. So we were able to snatch Dembele who was absolutely amazing. Yet again, our weakness of not being a star club and not able to pay top wages caught up with us again and Dembele left us one year later. The same year when Dembele left, we bought Sancho from Chelsea.
8. Inbetween we try to buy players who might want to stay with the club so that we have a solid ground to build a team. There were many decision that were a bit unlucky: Schürrle, Rode and others failed to meet expectations
9. Due to bigger financial power we managed to sign Brandt and now Can, who are arguably not from the top shelf of players, but still amazing signings for the BVB.
10. We signed Haaland and this has torn the fans in half, because as everyone knows, he has an exit clause and as a BVB fan, those exit clauses have hurt us a lot. But since we were in desperate need of a striker, I guess our leaders decided that it was worth the risk. To be honest, still after his first amazing games, I don't feel entirely comfortable with that decision. We'll see how this will work out, but I completely understand Uniteds sentiment to stay away from the transfer.
Basically we made a virtue out of necessity and at one point said "alright, we are a feeder club, so lets be the best feeder club the world has ever seen".
This won't be sustainable longterm, because maybe you will hit a dry spell and won't be so lucky that Dembele comes after Gündogan and Sancho comes after Dembele and this is the point here this model might collapse. If we have a look in soccers history, it happened to a lot of teams, FC Porto coming to my mind immediately.
So yeah, short version: No, BVB has not been reduced to be a stepping stone, we have risen to be a stepping stone and we managed to crawl slowly into the top 15 of Europe financially. And since BVB in some recent history was only able to keep its players when we overshot our budget by a lot which nearly ruined the club, no we have not been on par with the top 10 in Europe any time in the last 30 years.
To come back to Haaland. This guy has a way of making score goals look really easy. Always seems to be ahead of the defense he is playing against. But as much as I am happy for every goal, I am also thinking about the exit clause, so I am not 100% happy, only 85%.
Mate, I don't hate or love raiola any more than the next bloke.
Fact of the matter is, this guy is always looking to move his clients from one club to the next which is NOT how Manchester United operate. We value loyalty and longevity. When a player signs for us the expectation is that he will stay for the rest of his career, not use us as a stepping stone or have clauses inserted in contracts which allow them to hold the club hostage.
Its fine for a smaller club like dortmund who are just looking to get paid and make most of their money from transfer fees. Its not compatible with a club like Manchester United.
I'm sure come summer time he will be making noises about Pogba wanting to leave. Most likely to get him the biggest possible contract renewal as I don't see many clubs coming in for him anymore.
Good read! I just thought that the next best German team after Bayern had to be up there. But that’s what bad management can do to you. I also hope that Haaland is the last wonderkid you buy with a low release clause. If you look at the best players with these clauses the fees are always insane which means it’s always a win/win situation for the selling club. If Haaland is as good as everyone says he is 70 million might be too low after all the work you are putting into developing him. At least 100 should have been the minimum.
I think you are 100% correct. Raiola has a very good reputation among players, and I´ve only heard praise of him from their side. Some seem to have the impression that Raiola is manipulating players in order to enrich himself, which makes no sense of all. Would that be the way to make clients? When Haaland e.g. ended up in Dortmund with a release clause, that looks like an ideal deal for the player himself. He goes directly into the team, just like he did at Salzburg (more or less), and he will make the next move when he goes directly into the next team on the latter. That´s probable a more effective way to improve than playing in the reserves somewhere.
Del
It's like scarlett Johanson asking you to be his temporary boyfriend until she find a better one, with 2 years minimum, and some hefty profits if she finally found it.
Other than you might actually fall in love with her, it's a no lose situation with BvB.
As some correctly pointed out, Raiola also works with players who remained at their clubs for very long periods. He doesn't force players to move, he just sees through what they want. I'm sorry, but if Pogba pushes for a transfer in the summer, it is most likely because Pogba wants that, not Raiola.
I also don't understand how so many United fans talk that disrespectful about Dortmund. The club has an extremely talented young team. Currently it looks like they'll be replacing Sancho with Havertz, so that's two exceptional talents signed during half a year. At the very moment, they have a comfortably better and younger team than United has and of all those players, there's one (!) individual with a release clause. Personally, I'd fancy them to beat you quite comfortably in both a direct match up as well as a league campaign. If I were you, I'd happily swap teams/overall situation with the BVB at this point in time.
Going to Dortmund is easily the smartest thing he could have done. The system suits him perfectly, the league suits him perfectly for making the step up, they create boatloads of chances and play an attacking style, and had no real striker so he walks in.
Plus they have no problem being a stepping stone club and selling for a profit and taking that release clause after a few years when he wants the next step up.
I understand why we wouldve backed out over that, but also very possible that he just chose them, as it always made more sense to him. And besides, he wouldnt have that type of impact at United (even accounting for this run not continuing). Dortmund is one those teams that will create loads and loads for their #9 that very few can match.
Plus they have no problem being a stepping stone club and selling for a profit and taking that release clause after a few years when he wants the next step up.
I understand why we wouldve backed out over that, but also very possible that he just chose them, as it always made more sense to him. And besides, he wouldnt have that type of impact at United (even accounting for this run not continuing). Dortmund is one those teams that will create loads and loads for their #9 that very few can match.
It was still a good deal from my point of view, like yeah it's going to suck if he becomes a world class striker and then he decides he wants to leave for a different club and you end up having to find a replacement and start all over again but a lot can change in the future and you're still guaranteed to make a profit out of him and got him on your ranks. The guy just doesn't want to end up in a situation like Pogba were a club like United would overpay for him, put him on ridiculous wages and then it becomes very hard to move that player if things don't work out at the club, so all in all I'd say you're currently in a good position and the club would still be perceived as a good destination for young talented players. So I think you just need to keep building like this and making the club grow.
fml
What a windup this transfer saga has been. Close the thread and move on. Stuff like the Ighalo signing and zero goals in 4 hours of PL football is just making it worse.
Very good post.
If he keeps performing at this rate, when the time his clause can be activated you just know that every single big club will ready to push the button. He can literally pick and choose which club he wants and sadly that won't be us
So I take it that everyone has been convinced by him now, even those who didn’t want him at United?
Would a combination of Mata, Pereira, James, Lingard and Andreas even have created seven goalscoring chances for him by now if he had joined Manchester United?
Can we all just agree not to bump this thread? It's depressing AF
Genuine question, who didn’t want him or thought he would block Martial’s development? It’s a bit of a meme in here but I can’t actually find the posts.
I think it was more about Greenwood his development since they are about the same age.
I’ve just done a search and I can see one person who appears to seriously say that we should be ok if we don’t get Haaland because we have Martial. Not that we shouldn’t buy him because of Martial.
Other than that there is hundreds of posts saying that we definitely need him in addition to Martial and that all our current forwards would benefit from having a striker like him to play with.
Yet this thread is full of posters wittering on about how “RedCafe told them that we didn’t need to sign Haaland because we have Martial”.
It’s another straw man argument that’s gotten really boring really fast.
We do put a lot of crosses into areas he’d occupy, so probably. But unfortunately we have no one of his ilk in our squad, so we’ll never know. Frustrating as hell watching us play and zero movement bar probably Mata going into the box.
yeah, let’s lock the Liverpool thread while we’re at it
Nope, a few are still in denial. Augsburg, Köln and Berlin 'play suicidal high lines', he ‘only scores tap-ins' etc.
The latest seems to be people believing that he wouldn't be scoring if he was here. On Saturday I saw us right after watching Dortmund and the difference between Haaland and Martial is staggering. Whilst one is desperate to get into the box at all times, the other is the exact opposite. There was one incident in the start of the second half that sums up Martial perfectly. He played the ball to AWB on the flank and then stood still for a couple of seconds before realising 'oh shit I better get inside the box'. Haaland on the other hand starts sprinting the moment he plays that ball because he has the basic instincts a striker should have. He understands the simple fact that goals are easier to score the closer you are to the goal. And what separates him from other good strikers is that he keeps making those runs for 90 minutes regardless of the score line because he's obsessed with goals.
Yes we don't create enough but that's also a by-product of the forwards not offering any movement or showing willingness to make those runs. At that level there's only so much you can create if there's no willingness from the teammates around you.
Remember when there were some people on the forum who said that he would block Martial, Rashford and/or Greenwood's progress and how we don't need another forward. Wonder how those people must've felt when we signed Ighalo.
Those criticizing Borussia are just jealous. They've gotten a class player for a couple of seasons and will be able to sell him at a profit (even though it might be less than market value). They should just enjoy the player, and try to win as much as they can with him and then move on to the next guy. With their fabulous scouting system ( which operates in another galaxy from ours), they should be able to identify a worthy successor when the time comes.
I would not be surprised if in the future we see more young promising players bet big on themselves, controlling their own sell out clauses with the help of crafty agents.
I would not be surprised if in the future we see more young promising players bet big on themselves, controlling their own sell out clauses with the help of crafty agents.
Quote them please
If I was a professional footballer I’d want Raiola as my agent.
They had no problem declaring Ighalo signing a smart move. #facepalm
The defending in the bundelisga looked atrocious based off the goals I have seen him score. Chaotic and lax.
Oh, come on, the early December posts once the chase was hotting up are ridiculous.
That’s literally first page of this thread but it’s also a mantra that was popular during multiple transfer forum threads when we were linked
That’s not saying anything like people are suggesting was said though.
You’re right on that score; it is indeed rather poor.
However he’s repeating his form that he showed in Austria and shows that: he’s a natural goalscorer and two, he’s progressing well.
It’s never linear and he may or may not stall. But for the moment it’s rather impressive
Great post, Darkness.
Thank you for the erudite outlining of the inner workings at Dortmund.
It's a shame you can't get two likes for it. I bet @van der star couldn't believe his luck stamping this one!
Really disgusted we missed out on this guy. Top 4 and probably Europa League winners with him and Fernandes in our side.
He is looking impressive, just not sure we would produce the number of chances for him. He would score certainly, but there I can see at least two goals in most games.