Zlatan Ibrahimović had once given Erling Haaland one instruction: never touch the hair. On 23 August, Haaland touched all of it.

The Manchester City striker shaved off the long ponytail that had become his trademark and posted the transformation in a YouTube video hours before the club’s league opener against Bournemouth. Then he started calling people to break the news.

Ibrahimović took the video call with an expression that landed somewhere between disbelief and comedy.

“What did you do? You lost a bet or what?”

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“Block me and erase my number, my friend.”

The joke had a specific weight to it, because Haaland has told the story before of an early-career warning from Ibrahimović, framed like a retelling of the Samson myth.

“The only thing is, Zlatan told me never cut your hair because your strength is in your hair,” Haaland said in his own video introducing the buzz cut.

The Norwegian signed the post off with a nod to the ancestry the ponytail had come to represent.

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“Remember, the vikings always cut it short.”

Guardiola: “You’re lucky you have hair”

Pep Guardiola, no longer City’s head coach after Enzo Maresca took over ahead of the 2026-27 season, was also on the call list. His response was drier and warmer than the Swede’s, delivered by a man who long ago made peace with a bald head.

“No way. You’re lucky you have hair. I would love to have it. I love it,” Guardiola told Haaland, adding that the striker could always let it grow back if he changed his mind.

Team-mate Jack Grealish went for the mockery route, telling Haaland he looked “about 10 years old” and adding that he could not stop staring at the front of the new cut. Oasis guitarist and lifelong City fan Noel Gallagher rounded off the reactions by laughing, “Mate, you look about 17 years old. Good, change is good.”

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The buzz cut did not help against Bournemouth

Hours after the video went out, Haaland walked onto the Etihad pitch with the new look for Maresca’s first Premier League match in charge. It did not go smoothly for the striker himself.

City eventually won 2-1, Marc Guéhi equalising in the 84th minute after Marcus Tavernier had put Bournemouth ahead, and Joško Gvardiol grabbing a stoppage-time winner that was awarded following a VAR check. Haaland spurned several gilt-edged openings, including a Nico O’Reilly cross that he chested from six yards out with the goal at his mercy, and left the pitch without a goal on his hair-debut afternoon.

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