His move to Ajax could not have turned out better for Sébastien Haller. The 27-year-old striker switched from West Ham United a year ago and, against all odds, is now at the top of the Champions League top scorers list. Haller knows that his qualities are fully reflected in Ajax’s game. “At West Ham I played in a system that didn’t really suit me,” the Ivorian international told the Guardian†
Haller is used at Ajax as a pure finisher and thrives in that role, as witnessed by the 41 goals he scored in 51 official matches for the team from Amsterdam. At West Ham, the attacker played much further from the enemy’s goal. “That’s the problem: I asked my mother for speed, but she couldn’t give it to me,” laughs Haller, who knows exactly what he can and cannot do as a football player.
“I’m not one to do long dribbling because I’m not good at it!” says the 1.90m attacker. “That’s a shame, but also a blessing at the same time. I always have to think twice about which choice I make. I really have to time my sprints because it is difficult for me to overtake a defender.” Haller grew up in Ris-Orangis, a suburb of Paris, and played a lot of street football in his youth. “There used to be ten thousand guys with more talent on the streets where I come from. But it’s the choices you make that make the difference.”
Back to January 2021, when Ajax was in need of strikers and knocked on Haller’s door. West Ham did not like his purchase, which had been brought in for €50 million just a year and a half ago, and agreed to a loss of €27.5 million. In England, the return of Haller to the Netherlands, which exchanged the Premier League for a much less highly regarded competition, was looked on with amazement. “It took me a long time to think about whether I should do it,” Haller says. “But in the end I wanted to enjoy football. I thought, why should I do what other people think or think? They want to comment on everything they see, even if they don’t know the situation. This is not their life, this is my life.”
“You can say, ‘Look at me, I play for a Premier League club, even though I’m always on the bench.’ But at Ajax I can score goals, play for prizes, play Champions League, enjoy football,” Haller said. “In the end it was a simple decision, a no-brainer. So I went to David Moyes (West Ham manager, ed.) and said: ‘I want to ask you if you can let me leave. I want my confidence back. ‘ Fortunately, he and the club agreed.”