Haaland: Alf-Inge Rasdal (Alfie)

1997-2000 (Leeds Player Details)(Player Details)

Midfield/Defender

Born: Stavanger, Norway: 23-11-1972

Debut: v Arsenal (h): 09-08-1997

5’10” 12st 12lb (2003)

#63 in 100 Greatest LUFC Players Ever

He started playing his club football for Bryne FK, and played for Norway at Youth level. He went across to England and had trials with Nottingham Forest and impressed Frank Clark enough for him to sign him on 25th January 1994 for £250,000. He had played in central defence for Bryne, for who he scored four goals in sixty-eight games, and was chosen by Norway at right-back but Forest played him in midfield. He had quickly progressed into the Norwegian Under-Twenty-one team and then the full squad, appearing for them in the 1994 World Cup in the USA. In his first season Forest finished third in the Premiership and ensured a place in Europe for the following season, when they reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup before being eliminated by Bayern Munich. Haaland had his best season for Forest in 1996-97 but the team was poor, and Forest were relegated. Frank Clark resigned halfway through the season and Stuart Pearce was appointed caretaker-manager. Haaland decided it was time to move on. He remained at Nottingham Forest until 12th June 1997 when he was signed by Leeds United for £1.6 million, the fee being decided by a tribunal after the clubs could not agree terms. He had scored seven goals in seventy five League games, of which nine had been from the bench. He had started five F.A. Cup matches and play one as a substitute, started two League Cup games and had come off the bench five times, while in the UEFA Cup he had started two and come off the bench three times. He had therefore played almost one hundred games and scored seven goals in his three-and-a-half years stay. With Leeds, he started the 1997-98 season as a substitute but soon forced his way into the starting eleven and quickly established a cult following among the fans with his all-action displays, as he gave solidity to the midfield in a defensive role rather than a creative one. After he had established himself he was injured in a tackle with Patrick Veiera and missed much of the latter part of the season. The following season he featured regularly but sometimes filled in at the back as the competition for the midfield places grew. In 1999-2000, he found himself very much on the sidelines, only making the occasional appearance and was well down the midfield pecking order. He said he wanted to fight his way back into the side, but his hopes for further first team, and international appearances, looked more likely to lie away from Elland Road. On 12th June 2000 Manchester City’s Joe Royle came in with a £2.5 million offer to take him to Maine Road. He soon settled into his new club, and as at Leeds he was popular with the fans, and was made City’s captain, but he picked up a series of injuries and at the end of the 2000-01 he underwent an operation on his knee and despite resuming training in the 2001-02 pre-season he was forced to have a second operation after his knee swelled up once more and he was sidelined once more. Haaland went through the following two seasons without starting a game for the Blues. It seemed that he was loosing his fitness battle and in February 2003 the club gave him six months' notice on his contract and he was due to leave them in August 2003. Manager Keegan decided to give him a last chance to prove his fitness and when pre-season training started Haaland was ready to battle for a place in the squad, but there was no happy ending and he was forced to retire on 21st August 2003. He had scored three times for City in thirty-eight League games, of which three were as a substitute. He also started three F.A. Cup ties and came off the bench once and started five League Cup ties all without adding to his goal tally. Haaland and City came to a cash agreement over the remaining two years of his contract. The Norwegian is often remembered for his "feud" with Roy Keane. In 1997, Keane went to tackle Haaland but in the process injured his cruciate ligament. As Keane lay prone on the ground, Haaland taunted him by implying that Keane had made a dive but when he saw that Roy Keane was actually injured Haaland implied that Keane deserved the injury as punishment for his reckless tackle. Three and a half years later, in 2001, Keane made a knee-high tackle on Haaland, according to his biography, "out of vengeance". Keane was sent off as a result and incurred a five-game suspension and a £150,000 fine. Haaland had to retire through injury in 2003. It was said on Haaland's web site that it was not as a result of Roy Keane's tackle (according to the website the injury that ended Haaland's career was in his other knee, not the one that got hit in the Keane tackle). He did come out of retirement, scoring three times in ten games for Bryne FK from 2009 to 2011 and signed for Rosseland BK in 2011. At an international level he had represented his country thirty-four times and a further twenty-nine times at Under-Twenty-one level.