Erling Haaland has shocked football fans by completely chopping off his iconic long blonde locks and ditching his trademark Viking ponytail.
The Manchester City striker debuted a short military-style buzz cut on social media before their opening league match against Bournemouth, captioning the transformation “New season, new trim”. Haaland revealed in a YouTube vlog that he wanted a fresh start for the campaign, even though he had to break advice from Zlatan Ibrahimović—who had previously told him never to cut it because “the strength is in the hair”. When shown the new look on a video call, Zlatan hilariously asked if he had “lost a bet”.
Haaland isn’t the first striker to shock everyone by ditching a signature long-hair look, though. Zlatan Ibrahimović himself famously rocked a warrior top knot and ponytail for well over a decade before eventually trimming it down late in his playing days across spells at Manchester United and AC Milan.
