Leeds United boss recalls role in Erling Haaland breakthrough and star's nine goals in one game

An 18-year-old Haaland signed for Red Bull Salzburg from Norwegian outfit Molde in January 2019 and former New York Red Bulls boss Marsch became head coach of the Austrian outfit the following summer. At that point, Haaland had yet to make his breakthrough following a second half of the season at Salzburg that featured just one league start in the 2-1 victory at home to LASK of May 2019.

But Haaland incredibly scored nine goals in one game for Norway's under-20s in an under-20s World Cup match against Honduras the same month and Marsch said it soon became clear that he had inherited a special talent upon his arrival as Salzburg head coach.

Haaland went on to play 22 games under new boss Marsch, scoring an incredible 28 goals in those 22 outings before departing for Borussia Dortmund in January 2020. Three years later, the striker is one of the biggest stars in the game but Marsch can still recall the early days of Haaland’s breakthrough ahead of Wednesday night's reunion when Leeds face Haaland's Manchester City at Elland Road.

"He’d only played one game (before I came in)," said Marsch. "When I took over at Salzburg, we lost nine of 11 starters. Even as I was preparing, I was looking at a lot of the players that were out on loan and some of the players that hadn’t played and with the sport director we were piecing together what we thought the new team could look like.

"What was really unique also was it was the first year the club was going into the Champions League. So there was also pressure to perform in the Champions League and with a really young, new team. But this is what Salzburg does.

"I had to look at a lot of video, watch some training sessions and with my instincts figure out how we could piece that team together based on a lot of players that were out on loan, some that were on the bench, some that were coming up from the second team. And Erling was one that we thought could have a big impact and a breakout moment.

"He went to the U20 World Cup, in one game he scored nine goals against Honduras. We usually give three weeks to every player after an international tournament but he wanted to come back after 10 days and be at the first day of training.

"I even talked to him about was he sure about that, the break might be useful, and he insisted he wanted to come back and get to work. I would say within two days I thought, ‘all right, this looks a little bit different than most players’ and by the way, there was an incredible group of young players that had been bench players or out on loan. I was excited about the possibilities but after a few days you saw it come together and you knew that we could be good and that Erling could be special."

Asked what Haaland was like behind the scenes, Marsch reasoned: "He had a real desire to improve. He watched videos a lot, asked a lot of questions, wanted feedback, wanted extra training. When I would leave the training centre and I was almost always the last one to leave, everyone else would be gone and I’d walk through the building just to see if anyone else was there and that everything was picked up and clean, and then Erling would be in the regeneration pool.

"He’d come back later in the afternoon before dinner to go through things again. He’d be on his phone watching stupid Instagram things because he still loves these kinds of things, but his attention to taking care of himself and doing everything he could to make sure that he could be at his best was special.

"When you have someone like that, regardless of how young or old he is, that’s infectious. So, that part was always really impressive with Erling. But we have guys like that here with the young players, you just want to give them the feel that they always want more, that they are never satisfied, that they have an itch that they have to scratch for improvement and desire to be the best. Once you can tap into that, you can see a spark and the learning curve just accelerate. That is the job of a leader, to provide those players with the information necessary for them to achieve that."