From Haaland to Gordon: what happened to Next Generation 2017?

Talent spotting in football can be a brutal and precarious business. There are so many pitfalls on the way and a player who is outstanding at 16 may not make it for a variety of reasons: loss of form and/or confidence, injuries and a host of personal reasons.

Every now and then, however, a player comes through who is so good that he or she seems destined to make it to the top. Erling Haaland – or Erling Braut Håland as he was known back then – is one of them. Of course, a serious injury could have derailed his career but he was one of those kids who stand out from an early age.

Haaland was part of our Next Generation worldwide pick in 2017 and, as we look at how the players have got on in the past five years, he is the outstanding name on the list. Some would say he is the best player in the world (although that is a different discussion).

In an excellent piece for The Coaches’ Voices, Alf Ingve Berntsen, Haaland’s first coach at Bryne in Norway, pointed out that the environment the player grows up in also plays a part: “Having a safe and good environment, having Inge as a father, and being surrounded by his childhood friends has helped him a lot. Besides the influence of his father it was very important for him to grow up in a town like Bryne, a place where he didn’t have all the media attention that surrounds young footballers today.

“If he had grown up in a big city – like Madrid, Paris or London – he would still have become a good player, because Erling always wanted to have fun and loved to train. But maybe in Bryne it is easier than in other cities to let young players grow up without pressure and enjoy football without taking it too seriously.”

Hilariously, Berntsen says that Haaland was considered “too small and