SPECIAL FEATURE
Favre denied that he had to be sold the
merits of the deal and has subsequently
been unstinting in his praise of the young
goalgetter. And why wouldn’t he? Haaland
is the winning lottery ticket, delivering a
supersub hat-trick on his debut, in a 5-3
win at Augsburg, and netting a brace in a
Champions League round-of-16 first-leg
victory over Paris Saint-Germain.
Haaland’s statistics this term speak for
themselves: 39 goals in all competitions
for Salzburg and Dortmund up to the end
of February, including no fewer than six
hat-tricks.
Amid all the media frenzy, Favre knows
only too well that he must do all he can
to throw a protective blanket over the
teenager in order to keep a lid on the
hype factory.
“He scored so many great goals
for Salzburg and I don’t see why he
shouldn’t continue like this in the
German Bundesliga,” Favre told Kicker.
“However, it’s obvious that he can’t^
play every match.
“You have to give a 19-year-old a
breather from time to time. We have
to be careful. In attack he’s not our only
option.” Some would vehemently argue
with the last point.
Much has been made of the
club’s signing coup, with the media
concentrating on the fact that Dortmund
only had to stump up €20million to
trigger Haaland’s release from Salzburg.
But that is by no means the bottom line
in the outgoings column. When transfer
fee, agent bill, salary and signing-on
monies are taken into account, the
complete financial package comes
to far nearer €100m.
While Dortmund are counting on being
able to make a serious return on their
investment, they will not have a licence
to print money. German magazine Sport
Bild recently reported that Haaland’s
contract contains a more than affordable
€75m exit clause, which could come
into play as early as 2022. Sport Bild’s
information is that Haaland and his
entourage had hoped to set the release
figure at €50m but Dortmund would
not play ball, insisting that the bar beset 50 per cent higher.
Normally Dortmund avoid buy-out
clauses in contracts. The last player they
allowed to have one was Gotze, who
controversially left for Bayern in a €37m
deal in 2013. Dortmund swore they
would never be caught out again, yet
they simply had to compromise to bring
Haaland on board.
That’s Haaland’s agent Mino Raiola for
you, invariably striking a hard bargain.
Dortmund do possess one magic
bullet, though. In the event of Haaland
leaving before the end of his contract,
the club will recoup all the money they
spent on him, including salary, agent
commissions, special payments and
bonuses – which is a pretty good
insurance policy.
Needless to say, Haaland has
exceeded all expectations at Dortmund
these past few weeks. After watching him
rack up 28 goals for Salzburg in the first
half of this season, every member of theplayers available. But Dortmund certainly
struck gold with Haaland. Often sloppy
and inconsistent, Dortmund were a pale
imitation of a title candidate last autumn.
Now, with Haaland leading the charge,
anything looks possible.
One of the most intriguing aspects
of Dortmund’s swoop for Haaland
was the internal HR dynamics at play
behind the scenes at the Ruhr club. Only
last summer coach Lucien Favre was
adamant the side did not need to dip into
the market for another striker, insisting
he was more than happy to use the
mobile and freewheeling Paco Alcacer
and Mario Gotze at the point of attack.
According to insiders, Favre was not at all
interested in a big, bullish centre-forward
such as Haaland.
Ultimately, however, it would not be
Favre’s decision to make. In Germany it is
the chief executive and director of sport
who call the tune, and Dortmund’s Hans-
Joachim Watzke and Michael Zorc most
definitely had a soft spot for Haaland.
The teenager had been on the duo’s
radar for quite some time, and with
so many other clubs – among them
Manchester United, Juventus and RB
Leipzig – hot on the trail, Watzke and
Zorc decided to go for broke, eventuallypersuading the Norwegian to sign
a four-and-a-half-year contract.
Two points need to be made. One:
Dortmund remain very much the number
one destination for up-and-coming
youngsters in Europe. Two: here was a
case of the Dortmund power-brokers
tacitly confessing to past failures in
recruitment policy; a clear admission
that for far too long – since Robert
Lewandowski moved to Bayern Munich
in 2014 – they had suffered from the
lack of a genuine central striker.
In an interview with Kicker magazine
published in mid-January, a fortnight
after Haaland signed for Dortmund,“You have to give a 19-year-old
a breather from time to time.
We have to be careful”
Dortmund boss Lucien FavreDebut...celebrating against Augsburg, a game in which he scored a hat-trickOpener...the first of
his two goals against
Paris Saint-Germain