As Erling Haaland tears through the 2026 World Cup and drags Norway into unfamiliar territory, the spotlight has widened to the people who keep him running.
One of them is not a coach or a club physio. He is a movement therapist from Beirut.
John Haddad, a Lebanese biomechanics and movement specialist, has worked with Haaland for years. Known as "The Fix" and dubbed a miracle man by parts of the Norwegian press, he has become a quiet fixture in the striker's support team during some of the most important stretches of his career.
From Dortmund to Manchester
Haddad started working with Haaland around 2020, back when the striker was still at Borussia Dortmund. He reportedly helped Haaland recover from a hip problem and get back on the pitch faster than expected. That relationship carried over to Manchester City, where Haaland has continued to travel to work with him during injury setbacks.
When the Norwegian has hit a physical wall, Haddad has often been part of the plan to get him back. Showing up at the right moments and delivering results is how he earned his nickname.
The Method Behind "The Fix"
Haddad's approach is less about patching up a single injury and more about finding what caused it. His work centers on how an athlete actually moves, spotting the mechanical faults that lead to breakdowns and correcting them at the source.
The idea is simple to state and hard to do: fix the movement, and you fix the injuries that keep coming from it. A focus on root cause, rather than symptoms, is what he says sets his method apart from standard treatment.
A Beirut School With Global Reach
Originally from Lebanon, Haddad founded Level 8, a biomechanics and movement therapy school based in Beirut that trains practitioners from around the world. He has also built a wider following through his teaching and his own theory of motion.
His client list runs well beyond football. It reportedly includes MMA fighters, Olympians, and athletes across a range of sports, alongside some of the biggest names in the game.
Haaland is now among the tournament's top scorers, with Norway into the last eight for the first time. Behind that run sits a movement specialist from Beirut, a reminder that Lebanese expertise travels a lot further than the country's borders.
