How Erling Haaland's special glasses help give Man City stars edge over rivals

Heart and liver may not yet be on the menu at the Etihad but Erling Haaland mania at Manchester City now includes his eyewear.

As well as being one of the best players in world football, the 23-year-old Norwegian is also already one of the biggest brands. That has been seen in the spikes in ticket and shirt sales at the Etihad since he arrived last year and the clamour everywhere he goes - tickets for the team training session in South Korea last week were promoted at around £20 and 23,000 people showed up - but also in fields beyond football; he recently modelled at an exclusive Dolce and Gabbana in a sign that his popularity eclipses sport.

Even people with no interest in the game can be fascinated by Haaland, but the same applies to those that see him every day. City's players were so interested in the glasses that their striker wears at night to help his recovery that he got some for the whole squad to enjoy and utilise and Jack Grealish is among those to have become taken with them.

The story of the glasses goes back to 2018, when a 17-year-old Haaland arrived at his new club Molde and bumped into a teenager from Philadelphia who had just started his own business. Ra Optics may not have been the first company to offer glasses that protect from harmful blue light in the atmosphere, but founder and CEO Matt Maruca does like to think that he was the first one to make them 'cool'.

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Having struggled with his health as a child, Maruca spent his years in high school learning everything he could about blue light - found in sunlight to help set the natural body clock (called a Circadian rhythm] but also found in artificial light that can disrupt it.