A Sunday afternoon in May 2012. An 11-year-old boy sits in his living room watching the team he supports play a game that should, for the first time in 44 years, see them crowned the glorious champions of England. For now though, with the game nearing its end, there is gloom. The boy fidgets, leaning back on the sofa, looking to his father’s eyes for reassurance that doesn’t come.
It’s a scene replicated all over Greater Manchester and beyond. Decked in sky blue, sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, sit staring, hoping, dining out on fingernails. Our scene is in Norway. We’re into injury time and on the television, Manchester City trail Queens Park Rangers 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium. Title rivals Manchester United have won 1-0 at Sunderland. City must score two goals. The boy is Erling Haaland, his father is Alfie, a former City player, a man with much to know and say about the club’s past, but who now has no words of encouragement for its present. The clock is ticking.
“I remember that day so well,” says Erling Haaland, as he sits in front of FourFourTwo. “Like it was yesterday. It was crazy. The day had been all about winning. This was our moment, this was the day the club became league champions. I remember we settled down to watch, my dad was just as excited as me, but things went crazy. City are losing to 10-man QPR. We’re massive favourites, and we’re losing. United have already won. It’s despair. But then, after 91 minutes I think it was, Edin Dzeko scores. There’s hope, but there’s so little time.”
Haaland’s eyes, like any City supporter being asked to transport themselves back to that afternoon, light up as the conversation takes him into the 93rd minute of the match. “The winning goal felt so strange,” he recalls. “Mario Balotelli on the ground, but somehow getting the ball to Sergio Aguero. The striker shuts his eyes and hits it, then it’s madness. Me and my dad, we’re up off our seats, we’re running around the living room screaming. The top comes off, and it’s spinning around the head. Special. What a moment.”
ARRIVAL OF THE INEVITABLE
Ten years have passed, and there have been many more special moments at Manchester City. Five Premier League titles have followed; domestic cups, great teams, great players and the most lauded coach this generation has known have all made their way through the Etihad’s gates. Sky blue joy is common, and on a July afternoon this summer, when the club unveiled their new goal-getter to a raucous, already smitten support outside their ground, it felt like another gargantuan moment in City’s
