Tuchel doesn’t rule out Chelsea taking part in the Erling Haaland sweepstakes

The brief Erling Braut Haaland mini-saga this past summer was little more than an appetizer for the main course to come next summer, with the 21-year-old’s €75m release clause (of sorts?) set to kick in and set to make him a veritable bargain even in this pandemic-affected economy.

And despite Chelsea spending a club-record amount on fellow striker Romelu Lukaku (significantly more than €75m in fact), we are still probably going to buy a lottery ticket. Can’t win if you don’t play, right? And the list of teams able to afford Haaland is very short to begin with in the first place.

Thomas Tuchel recently hinted at this in an interview with SportBild, which is making the breathless rounds this morning — not that it really means anything beyond idle speculation at this point. (Because of course we must ask the coach about transfer rumors while conferring onto him another Coach of the Year award!)

“We talked about Erling Haaland a couple of times, including during the transfer window. But then it seemed absolutely unrealistic and not at all feasible.

“We talk about him regularly, of course, because he’s a fantastic player and clearly the defining figure at Dortmund, who is a big rival for us in the Champions League.”

“You mean two at the top [with] Lukaku and Haaland? We can talk about it! I don’t think we’ve been really serious about it yet, but let’s see what will happen in the next few weeks.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: SportBild via Goal

That said, Lukaku and Haaland together would be hilarious, and I’m here for it. Make it happen, MG!