Junior mentor: We just knew Man City signing Haaland destined for big things | OneFootball

Manchester City signing Erling Haaland is now the biggest thing in Norway.

Haaland's move from Borussia Dortmund was formally announced this morning.

Despite his huge profile, Haaland still manages to find some quiet time when he returns to Bryne to be treated as "one of the guys".

When he is with his friends, he is one of the group," says Alf Ingve Berntsen, the man who gave Haaland his first senior start for Bryne in the Norwegian second tier aged just 15.

"But it is more and more difficult for him because we have never had such a famous big sporting star like Erling and he is just 21, so normal life is something he can't do any more.

"We had Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the late 90s but he was big as a player before social media. Now the pressure and interest in Erling is enormous."

Haaland, who was born in Leeds, was three at the time and Berntsen began to coach the young forward when he was moved up a year group at the age of eight because of his obvious promise.

"In a way, we could predict he was something special because in football you develop your skills in four basics," explains Berntsen to BBC Sport. "Tactical, how smart you are and movements; technical, how good you are with the ball; physically, if you have speed, endurance and so on; and mentality.

"When top clubs are scouting, they are looking at if you are really good in two of these four areas or quite good in three or four, but Erling from quite an early age was very good in technical, tactical and mentality.

"But he has a brother [Astor] who is five years older and he is big and strong and fast, so we knew the missing part in Erling's play would maybe become his biggest strength. In a couple of years, we knew he would have four out of four."