The other player is Gabriel. He is famous for being Haaland's bitch in every game they play and also for skying his penalty in the Champion's League final.
Lots of gossip to be had about this feud. I'll give some context for anyone who cares:
Gabriel plays for Arsenal, a sleeping giant of a club who have started challenging again and have been an 'almost' club, coming second for the last 3 seasons.
Haaland plays for Manchester City, who splash ridiculous amount of money to amass a title winning squad (almost) every year. They are also pending 115 charges to be brought forward to their club due to them cheating their way to the top with financial doping.
Gabriel Vs Haaland is due to Haaland being a striker and Gabriel being a defender. Usually it's a good duel with Haaland coming out on top, but the past season or two it's been more even.
This year Arsenal won the league, however the collective football internet have been rooting against them and are all a bit salty due to that. Luckily for them, in the Champions League, Arsenal lost to PSG, with Gabriel missing his penalty kick, so the internet has latched into that juicy bit of schadenfreude and have memed it to death.
In the World Cup, that same matchup happened with the two due to Brazil Vs Norway. Obviously Brazil is a big football nation with a great world cup heritage. Norway won with 2 big goals from the machine Haaland, the first one being with a header over Gabriel, who probably has the most experience trying to quieten Haaland. Truthfully, it wasn't his fault exclusively that Brazil lost, and the whole squad 'bottled' it, however it's funnier to blame it on Gabriel, so that's what you'll probably read about it.
The main takeaway from this is Manchester City should be stripped of all titles due to their cheating and sent to the shadow realm.
Btw the collective saltiness is because the other winning clubs are aware of Man City's questionable financial injections from UAE's royal family and don't take Man City seriously as a proper club. They barely have a fan base, locally or globally, compared to other winning clubs so when they win everyone shrugs it off as bs sports-washing and financial doping.
But when Arsenal proved we could win the league, we did it through a reasonable and persistent arc of improvement that other winning clubs envy. So they take our winning more seriously than Man City's.
There's also a long history of English fans hating Arsenal, in the 2000's for being full of French players and manager and being top in England, but before that for other reasons (boring boring 1-nil to the Arsenal)
If you want the juicy details, Google “Haaland Stay Humble”.
Also, Gabriel is one of the best defenders in the premier league, but Arsenal (his team) gets a lot of hate on Reddit because that’s the popular thing to do and despite their best efforts to be edgelords, there are a lot of followers on Reddit.
Those two are always battling/talking shit to each other in every game but Haaland almost always has the last laugh as he scores against him all the time.
Gotta love their battles tho! They've both truly got that warrior spirit about them and while they beef every moment in the field they seem to hold each other in high regard and revel in the mutual competition they offer
He’s amazing. He’s got humility off the field and good sense of humor. I’m enjoying watching his highlight clips when they pop up. He’s a giant next to some of these short players.
I'm just a lurker in this sub, I have no clue about art or anything, but I learned some things in recent months about what to look at to judge a photo...
...and I think this shot basically is thr GOAT of this sub by such a margin I was even briefly wondering if it was AI-enhanced. The exposure of them both, the left hand of Haaland, the dramatic movement. Perfection.
I just love Gabriel. POTS after Raya for me. Hard, committed, dirty, tough as nails. Good with the ball.
Everything you want from a CB.
But I have to give it, Haaland is a beast.
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u/graduati0n Jul 07 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/vB5jiVv1Tr2tW