Vinicius and Haaland, two ways to lead a team | OneFootball

Vinicius and Haaland embody starkly different leadership styles, and they meet on Sunday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in a single-game knockout. In yellow, the Brazilian appears transformed, the Norwegian the same force for club and country.

They have only previously crossed paths in Europe, in the Champions League. Nine days split their births, Vinícius José Paixão de Oliveira Júnior on 12 July 2000 and Erling Braut Haaland on 21 July 2000, the striker adding his mother’s surname for this tournament. According to Superdeporte, one of them will fly home aggrieved.

Vinicius has four goals and one assist from Brazil’s nine across four matches, with Raphinha injured and an out-of-form Neymar ineffective as a substitute. A winger by trade, he has finished more chances than Matheus Cunha, who has three. He has stayed focused and ignored distractions, and in the United States he has not told anyone to go down to Segunda.

Haaland has five in four at his first World Cup, Norway’s first for 28 years. He is largely the executor, intervening when service arrives in the box, and others, plus Iraq’s Aymen Hussain, have supplied five more as Norway reached the last 16. Alexander Sorloth has offered little.

Vinicius’s shift cannot be credited to Carlo Ancelotti, and may simply reflect personal growth. He has 13 goals and nine assists in 53 Brazil appearances, and at this World Cup he is four from four. He cried on seeing footage of the grandmother who raised him in São Gonçalo, and Marquinhos believes he better understands his place and is taking the reins.

Haaland, from a sporting family with mother Gry Marita Braut a national heptathlon champion, has 60 goals in 53 Norway caps. Gabriel Magalhães is a rare opponent who unsettles him. Brazil have more World Cup titles, five, than Norway have participations, four, yet Brazil have never beaten Norway, the record reading two Norway wins and two draws.

Source: Superdeporte