Man City, brace yourselves: Real Madrid are up to their old tricks over Erling Haaland

La Guerra – the war – has already begun. “The Ogre is coming,” blasted the front page of AS, the Madrid-based sports newspaper, to tee up Manchester City qualifying to face Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final.

The ogre is Erling Haaland and the coverage is the latest blatant attempt to suggest it is inevitable that the City striker will sign for Real.

It was accompanied by an article to that effect with claims that Real already know exactly what it will take to acquire Haaland and a convenient timeframe around the summer of 2024 when Karim Benzema, fresh from a 12-month extension being triggered, is finally expected to leave and a vacancy for a world-class number nine will need filling.

As ever it is far more complicated than that. There is no doubt that Haaland is extremely happy at City, not least because as well as scoring – so far – an incredible 48 goals, he has remained fit.

Indeed this season already represents the most number of games Haaland has played in a campaign and City have tailored a fitness and recovery programme specifically for him which he is delighted with. Given how obsessive Haaland is about maximising his career and doing whatever it takes to play the best he can it has been a shrewd approach from the club masterminded by Pep Guardiola.

Haaland is always researching state-of-the-art products and techniques to make him a better player and City have staff dedicated to helping him do just that.

He has also settled in Manchester and is content to walk the streets, go shopping and not be fazed by the attention – he finds it funny – while the fact the team are going for the Treble, and the individual awards that will then follow for him, means he is fulfilling his ambition.

Haaland is also playing for Guardiola and the importance of that cannot be under-estimated. While Guardiola’s future was not a deal-breaker in the negotiations to take Haaland from Borussia Dortmund to City last year, for a fixed price of £51. 2 million although that was vastly increased by agents fees and payments, it is now vital to his future.

And, indeed, vice-versa. There have been claims that a release clause in Haaland’s contract, set at either £150 million or £175 million, depending on reports, was removed once Guardiola signed his two-year extension taking him up to 2025.

However, Telegraph Sport understands the opposite is more likely to be true and that the amount in the clause was actually increased. It is also said that Haaland is ready to discuss an improved deal – his current one runs until the summer of 2027 - but this is believed to be premature.

Both City and Haaland’s camp are relaxed about the situation although the exact details around his contract are being closely guarded. Sources suggest reports are all wide of the mark while the Norwegian, who has integrated well into the dressing room where his dry sense of humour as well as his goals are appreciated, is completely relaxed.

As is Guardiola. There was curiosity as to how he would react to so much attention being piled on Haaland when he signed and whether, in fact, there would be some jealousy from the manager or the players. The opposite is true. Guardiola has no problem answering the questions about Haaland, as they draw the limelight, and the striker is revered by his team-mates.

There will be more questions and more headlines in the next fortnight and not least in the build-up to the momentous re-match with Real. City know that as does Guardiola and Haaland himself but he is unlikely to be unsettled. Far from it.

Will he end up in Madrid one day? It is entirely possible and not least because he had made it public that he quite fancies eventually playing in Spain. As Haaland’s agent Rafaela Pimenta told Telegraph Sport, in an exclusive interview last year, his career has already been carefully mapped out which suggest City is not his final destination.

“Who is Haaland? Haaland is the guy who wants to do more. Every day,” Pimenta explained. “Is he looking for money? He doesn’t care about money! He is looking to do more: to perform at the highest level and every day perform better.

“Erling has fun in the process. He enjoys it. He finds everything interesting. He is curious about it. He enjoys the learning curve. He enjoys also the mobility of it. It was super amazing to be in (Borussia) Dortmund. Now it’s super amazing to be in (Manchester) City. Let’s live this to the end. If you do not have fun in the process then you risk a lot of frustration and I try to manage this.”

It undoubtedly helps that Haaland’s father, Alf-Inge, a former midfielder with City and Leeds United, was also a player.

“There are many fantastic things about Erling and one of them is his father,” Pimenta said. “Because he has been there and done that. It’s like when it’s your first rodeo, people go ‘ahhh’ because they have never been through that. But Alfie has.

“When Alfie came to the office for the first time and we met with (her former business partner, now deceased) Mino (Raiola) of course, Alfie was already a man with a plan. And the plan of Alfie was ‘my plan is I need to have a plan and I need agents who make plans’.

“So it’s been very carefully prepared. It is planned every day. I say to the players ‘if when you start you don’t know where you are going then for sure you will not get there. Maybe you don’t get there anyhow but I guarantee you won’t if you don’t know the road’. So, yes, we made a plan from the start.”
It must be remembered that Haaland is not 23 until July. Can he really be expected to spend the rest of his career at City? Logically it appears unlikely. And if he leaves there are obviously few places he can go.

But it also must be remembered that if the Spanish media are to be believed he would have already signed for Real. There were a huge number of front pages last year in AS, Marca, Sport and Mundo Deportivo confidently claiming Haaland was coming to the Spanish giants; that he was the priority; that it was a done deal; that it was destiny; that he would be signed with Kylian Mbappe. In the end neither player made the move.

There is another dimension this summer with City and Real going head-to-head over the signing of Jude Bellingham, should he leave Dortmund (there is the possibility that he will stay for one more year), in negotiations being handled by the England international’s father, Mark.

It would be a huge blow for Real to again lose out to City. It means the war is being fought on three fronts.