Enzo Djebali was the guest of RMC Mercato, Thursday January 23 on the RMC Sport Twitch channel. The former Stade de Reims recruiter remembered the first times he observed Erling Haaland up close.
It was May 30, 2019 in Lublin, Poland. For the third day of the group stage of the Under-20 World Cup, Norway atomized Honduras with a score of 12-0. With nine goals from a certain Erling Haaland. The recruiter Enzo Djebali, author of the book Recruiterwas in the stands for the Stade de Reims. Nearly six years later, he recounts in RMC Market how the “cyborg” impressed him.
“When I saw him play, I said to myself that he is playing with his children even though he is supposed to be in the same age category!” recalls Enzo Djebali, guest on the channel’s new show RMC Sport Twitch. “On all the deep races and the combination races, there was not a meter wasted. I tell myself that there is zero waste. Not necessarily in the technical game, but in the races,” recalls -he too, then already marked by the “clinical side” of the young player.
“The player will destroy everything”
At the time, Stade de Reims wondered if it could pull off a nice move. “Very quickly, we see that there is zero hope,” admits Enzo Djebali, who had a feeling that RB Salzburg would start the phenomenon the following season. Which was not a given. After a full year in Norway with Molde, he arrived in Austria in the winter of 2019. “In different proportions, Haaland had a bit of the same problem as Albert Grønbæk today (in Rennes, editor's note). half a season with injuries, he's a little tired physically.”
-But for Erling Haaland, there was no room for doubt in the recruiter's mind: “Very quickly, you know that he is going to play every match. The player is going to destroy everything, that's obvious. ( …) There was a physical gap, but the tactical and cognitive gap, knowing where to race, at what time, at the right time, that's what impressed me the most.”
The crack will actually start the 2019/2020 season as a starter with RB Salzburg. Results: 28 goals until December, then a transfer in January to Borussia Dortmund for 20 million euros.
