Even a footballer who runs the 100m in under 11 seconds can be surprised by the pace of his own progress. Rasmus Højlund began 2022 as a reserve for FC Copenhagen. In the 19 months since, he has completed three transfers with a combined value of more than €100m (£87m) and has now landed at Manchester United: a club he supported as a boy. It is, as he put it during a first interview with the club’s in-house TV channel, “a little bit surrealistic”.
Do not expect Højlund to be daunted. A big reason he fell for United in the first place was admiration for Cristiano Ronaldo’s…
