Erling Braut Haaland will not be with the Norwegian national team this international period for the matches against Turkey (1-1) and Montenegro (Monday evening). Despite this, national coach Stale Solbakken had to answer questions about the 21-year-old striker of Borussia Dortmund on Sunday. The reason for this is a video that Haaland shared via social media earlier this week, in which he can be seen in a Boca Juniors shirt.
Haaland says he got interested in Boca Juniors through Leonardo Balerdi. Balerdi – who was trained by Boca Juniors – played at Borussia Dortmund for six months with Haaland and now wears the shirt of Olympique Marseille. “He asked me one day what the best club in Argentina is. I drove him crazy when I said Boca. I showed him videos of the fans and the stadium,” said Balerdi. “He asked if I could send a shirt from Boca. I sent him a shirt with number nine. He is a big fan.”
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— Erling Haaland (@ErlingHaaland) October 7, 2021
At the moment, Haaland is recovering from a muscle injury in Marbella, Spain, and he shared a video of it last Thursday. Loading”, wrote Haaland with images showing him standing on the field in a Boca Juniors shirt. The fact that Haaland published a video in which he can be seen in the shirt of Boca Juniors caused particularly enthusiastic sounds in Argentina.
The choice of shirt, however, also causes the necessary criticism of Haaland and that has everything to do with the shirt sponsor of Boca Juniors: Qatar Airways, the national airline of Qatar. Norway was the first country to make a statement against the World Cup in Qatar in March, after the Guardian reported that 6,500 workers had died building the stadiums for the tournament. Before the game against Gibraltar (3-0 win), the players wore shirts with ‘Respect, on and off the pitch’ during the warm-up, while the jerseys read ‘Human rights, on and off the pitch’ during the national anthem. fell.
Partly because of this, Solbakken was asked questions about Haaland’s video at the press conference on Sunday in the run-up to the match against Montenegro. “This has nothing to do with our action,” Norwegian media noted from the mouth of the national coach. “Erling does not represent us when he is in Marbella. But if I had the choice, I would have worn a different shirt. Then he would have worn a shirt from the Norwegian national team, for example.”
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