Haaland is said to have a tougher job in the box against the Czech Republic, data show. How to stop the Norwegian sniper?

That Norwegian killer Erling Haaland is much more dangerous at club level in a Manchester City shirt than in the Norwegian national team? Maybe yes maybe no. After all, he played 29 matches in the national team and scored 27 goals in them. He rarely has a bad day… However, the data collected about him by the prestigious British company Opta suggests that he might have one against the Czech Republic.

Due to injury, Haaland played only five out of a total of eight duels in qualifying for this year’s European Championship. And it is not a big surprise that the Norwegians did not manage even one of the three matches in which he was absent (they lost 0:3 in Spain, drew 1:1 in Georgia and 3:3 in Scotland). On the contrary, Haaland came up empty-handed in a single game and scored six goals in total.

Although he has averaged a lower xG (0.8) than City (1.0) this season, he has been far more effective in matches for his native country (55% shooting success and 1.1 goals per game average ). At the club, he converts exactly every fourth shot between the three posts into a goal and the average is 0.9. The lower number is also due to a much larger number of matches. However, his role in the national team is a little more readable, because Haaland is far less involved in the interplay and the difference in the creation of goal chances for others is striking (0.6 per 90 minutes on average for Norway and 1.1 for City).

The Czech defenders have the task of zeroing in on the current best striker (if not the footballer at all) in the world. How to do it? David Zima, Tomáš Holeš and Ladislav Krejčí, who are the most experienced stoppers in the Czech lineup, will have to stick to the Norwegian colossus and use their physical game. In terms of parameters, the opponent has the upper hand over them even before he enters the field (195 cm, 88 kg). Zima (192 cm) and Krejčí (191 cm) are at least equal to him in height (and therefore in the air), but the Norwegian will use at least eight extra kilos in power fights.

The key is not to let him take over the ball, especially around and in the penalty area. After all, Haaland scored 26 of his 27 goals in the national team from inside the penalty area. Given that he only got into it three times with a goal message by himself after his own action, which required him to travel at least five meters with the ball on his foot, it seems essential to block the flow of passes to his address.

Arsenal’s striker Martin Ödegaard takes care of them, although Haaland’s attacking partner Alexander Sörloth (four) is responsible for most of the assists, Ödegaard has three together with Kristian Thorstvedt. The radars of the unstoppable Norwegian measured a speed of 35.5 km/h this season in the Champions League, in City Kevin de Bruyne sends him one pass for the defense after another, the Czech defenders will also have to watch out for his attacks behind the back line.

However, the statistics are on the side of Souček et al., after all, in the entire last qualification for the Euro, they scored only four goals after shots from the penalty area (that is, from Haaland’s territory), which is the fifth best result of all the participants.

Another recipe for nullifying Haaland was offered by the Spaniards, who focused mainly on Ödegard, and the Norwegians lost 0:1 at home, while only five passes penetrated to the feared sniper in the entire match, which was the fewest in the entire qualification. And the same was true of his court supply, to whom La Roja allowed a single pass into the final third for the entire match. In the Czech version of the work for the newly elected Footballer of the Year Tomáš Souček, both also know each other from the Premier League.

For the Czech team, a duel with an absolute offensive leader can replace the upcoming fight with Portugal at the Euros, where the opponent will be led by Cristiano Ronaldo. The five-time winner of the Ballon d’Or for the best footballer on the planet is still a master of his field at the age of 39 and scored more goals in the Euro qualifiers than only the Belgian Romelu Lukaku.

He and Haaland are very similar in many ways. Both are end players who look for passes as close as possible to the opponent’s goal or in the penalty area. Severan’s mere 24 touches of the ball per game clearly indicate the intentions with which he goes on the field. Both Norway and Portugal are among the handful of national teams in the world that are strongly characterized by their center forwards. The evening match will thus serve Hašek’s coaching staff as valuable study material for the duel, in which valuable points will be at stake.

The article was originally published for Livesport Zprávy.