In cooperation with GOAL explains Voetbalzone regularly to young players who can go far in the future or who are already earning their spurs in (inter)national top football. This time the focus is on Rasmus Højlund, who made the switch to Atalanta after six impressive months at Sturm Graz for seventeen million euros.
Now that Erling Haaland is under contract with one of the major European top clubs in Manchester, the search for ‘the new Haaland’ is in full swing. For a few years, that player was expected to be Benjamin Sesko. The Slovenian teenager was affectionately known as the at Red Bull Salzburg, the former club of the Norwegian goalscoring machine little Haaland named. Those expectations were justified this summer when Manchester United and Chelsea considered paying €50million for Sesko, although he hadn’t really broken through in Austria yet.
With all eyes on Benjamin Sesko, another 2003-born striker stole the show as Salzburg visited Sturm Graz. Rasmus Hojlund scored both goals as the hosts ran out 2-1 winners over the champions.#NXGN pic.twitter.com/I0nWup4U4c
— Tom Maston (@TomMaston) July 30, 2022
However, it was sister club RB Leipzig that took off with Sesko’s signature. Leipzig paid Salzburg €24 million to sign him in the summer of 2023, but when the top Austrian club faced Sturm Graz at the end of July, his future was still uncertain and all eyes were on the 13-time Slovenian international. Sesko just couldn’t live up to expectations that day. He suffered a 2-1 defeat with Salzburg, while another teenage striker made an impression in this game and earned comparisons with Haaland with his game. Højlund scored both goals for Sturm Graz. The second in particular was of great beauty: Højlund knocked the Salzburg defense up to speed and then shot flawlessly, as Haaland has done many times in his short but illustrious career.
Højlund’s strong performance against the reigning champions of Austria was just one of the impressive feats he delivered after earning a transfer from FC Copenhagen to Sturm Graz in January 2022. His potential did not go unnoticed, Atalanta immediately continued during the last week of the summer transfer window. La Dea paid seventeen million euros for the nineteen-year-old Dane, after which Italian media reported that Haaland’s potential successor had arrived in the Serie A.
“I see similarities between myself and Erling Haaland,” said Højlund himself when he arrived in Austria in January. “He is fast, left-footed, tall and has a nose for the goal. His mentality is also insane!” Højlund is well on his way to being described in the same way, after half a year in which he became one of the best teenage strikers in the world. Sturm Graz paid the worst €1.9 million to FC at the beginning of this year Copenhagen It turned out to be a bargain, although this was partly due to the fact that Højlund in Denmark struggled to show the achievements he displayed as a youth player at professional level.
Højlund joined Copenhagen’s youth academy in 2017 and started to stand out during the 2020/21 season, scoring 15 goals in 22 appearances for the club’s Under-19s, before making his first minutes in the Danish club’s main squad as reward followed. Although he scored five goals in the Conference League in the first half of the following season, he failed to find the net once in the Danish Superligaen before moving to Sturm Graz.
Højlund was immediately accurate against Monza (0-2) on his basic debut on behalf of Atalanta at the beginning of September.
Not much was expected of Højlund when he arrived in Austria, but he shot straight out of the starting blocks. The Dane became only the second player in Sturm Graz history to score twice on his debut. “He will be worth every penny,” Raffael Behounek, the VSG Tirol defender who had to cover Højlund on his debut, told laola1. “He is an absolute machine. If he has the space, he is very difficult to defend.”
He scored four goals in his first three games and although Højlund couldn’t sustain that goal production last season, he was back on track at the start of the season. He made his two goals against Salzburg in the middle of a run of eight games, in which he scored six times. It was during this period that he really showed why the Haaland equations have been made so frequently. Højlund shows himself efficiently in front of the goal, is difficult to get off the ball and, like Haaland, mainly left-footed. Due to his excellent form, Højlund attracted the attention of a number of clubs, including Newcastle United and Club Brugge, before Atalanta made his move.
In his six months at Sturm Graz, the young Dane scored a goal or assist every 113 minutes. Højlund continued his good form from Austria at Atalanta. In his basic debut against Monza (0-2) he took the opening goal in the second half by popping up between two defenders and sliding in a cross from Ademola Lookman. Højlund now has some unforgettable weeks ahead of him. National coach Kasper Hjulmand recently selected him for the first time for the national team of Denmark. His debut followed on Thursday evening, when he came in as a substitute for Martin Braithwaite against Croatia (2-1 loss) after an hour.
With the World Cup in Qatar approaching, it cannot be ruled out that he will soon be part of Hjulmand’s final selection. If you thought Haaland was the only Scandinavian goal getter who is going to take over European football, then you are wrong. Rasmus Højlund has all the qualities to follow in the footsteps of the Norwegian scoring machine.