Maresca unlikely to name Haaland as Man City captain

Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.

Enzo Maresca revealed Erling Haaland is unlikely to be named as Manchester City’s new captain due to his goalscoring exploits.

Maresca is yet to name an official captain since Bernardo Silva’s move to Real Madrid this summer, with Phil Foden and Ruben Dias both wearing the armband during pre-season friendlies.

Marc Guehi has also been a name mentioned with the role, while Rodri’s potential move to Barcelona puts his candidacy in doubt.

While Haaland is set for his fifth season in Manchester, Maresca’s tactical idea for his captain does not align with the striker’s attacking prowess in front of goal.

“At Leicester and Chelsea, I had a rule that when we scored, the captain had to come to the bench for instructions and not celebrate,” said Maresca.

“But if he scores, then he can celebrate. If Erling is the captain, f****** hell – we have a problem, can you imagine?

“I think even if it is two or three minutes, there is always something to adjust. At the moment, we have three or four [captains] and we are missing one [Rodri is recovering from back surgery].

“In the case of Rodri, see what happens.”

During our pre-season tour of Asia, we sat down with our new manager for an in-depth interview following his return to the club  pic.twitter.com/HOlxAjsfhU

— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 10, 2026

Haaland has scored 162 goals in 198 appearances since joining City; only Harry Kane (178) and Kylian Mbappe (171) have scored more among players from the top five European leagues in that time.

And with 27 Premier League goals in 2025-26, Erling won his third Premier League Golden Boot in four seasons with City.

He is the fifth player to win the award as many times, after Thierry Henry (four), Mohamed Salah (four), Alan Shearer (three) and Kane (three).

In all competitions in 2025-26 (including the Club World Cup), only Kane (63) and Mbappe (43) scored more goals among players from the top five European leagues than Haaland (41), who averaged a goal every 107.3 minutes.

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