Pep Guardiola has praised Erling Haaland’s ‘cool’ demeanor in training, but says it’s impossible to tell how he handles pressure away from the pitch, joking, ‘I’m not sleeping with him!’
Haaland, one of the game’s hottest emerging properties, has drawn a lot of attention since joining Guardiola’s Manchester City. On his Premier League debut last Saturday, the Norwegian took it all in stride, scoring twice as the champions defeated West Ham.
Not unexpectedly, the 22-year-old was the focus of Guardiola’s post-game interviews at the London Stadium.
That followed a flurry of questions about Haaland during the Community Shield the week before when he squandered a golden opportunity against Liverpool, and he was once again the center of attention as Guardiola met with the media to discuss Saturday’s encounter with Bournemouth.
‘However, what I saw in training was that he was calm after Liverpool and calm after West Ham.’
Guardiola believes that because of the focus on Haaland, the criticism he received following his miss against Liverpool was overdone. He is confident that if he maintains his cool, he would excel at the greatest level.
‘If he doesn’t score goals, they’ll say maybe he’s not good,’ Guardiola remarked. ‘It appears like the end of the world is imminent. Everything goes wrong in unfavorable scenarios.
‘However, you must remain calm in difficult situations, and the best teams have a positive attitude.’
‘He’s a fantastic striker, and if you look at the names of the greatest strikers of all time at that age – how many goals – he’s the best.’ ‘However, he is still young.’ I’ll urge him to be a better player, finisher, and to think, ‘Today I’ll be better than yesterday.’ When this happens, he has the potential to be one of the top scorers of all time.’