He made everyone agree. At the heart of the debates for several weeks in England, Erling Haaland provided the best answers last night on the field of the Eithad Stadium. The Norwegian scored 5 goals against RB Leipzig in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 second leg. After such a performance, the press is unanimous. The FM editorial staff gave it a score of 10. Ditto for The Team or even the Manchester Evening News.
New records for Haaland
The British media added about it: “a goal every 12 minutes, making a tough game look stupidly easy.” The tv consultants, who have debated his case for the past few weeks, were all amazed by his match. A magical evening for Haaland. A footballer who also made history by becoming the third player to score 5 goals in a Champions League match after Lionel Messi in March 2012 (with Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen) and Luiz Adriano in October 2014 (with Shakhtar Donetsk against BATE Borisov).
It should also be noted that the 22-year-old striker became the second player in history to score a quintuplet in the C1 knockout phase after Messi. Luiz Adriano had scored his 5 goals in the group stage. Last night, Haaland also reached the symbolic bar of 30 goals scored in the Champions League (he is 33 after his quintuplet). He only needed 25 games to achieve this. This therefore makes him the player who has reached this stage the fastest. He was already the record holder of the fastest player to score 20 Champions League goals. He only needed 14 encounters for that.
The Norwegian does better than Mbappé
Tuesday evening, the Norwegian also became the youngest footballer to reach and pass the 30-goal mark in the history of the competition (22 years and 236 days) according to Opta. He does better than a certain Kylian Mbappé recalls the DailyMail. “He is unstoppable! Erling Haaland beats Kylian Mbappé to become the youngest player to score 30 Champions League goals. Indeed, Haaland did better than KM7, who had reached this stage at 22 years and 352 days, 116 more than the City player. The Skyblues striker also surpasses Messi, who had waited 23 years and 131 days to achieve this.
In his distance duel with Mbappé, to which he is often opposed, Haaland took a good step ahead. Moreover, if he continues at this rate, he could quickly catch up with the Frenchman, who currently has 40 goals in C1 but who is already eliminated with PSG. Last night, the Leeds native also made Citizens history by equaling and then surpassing the single-season goalscoring record then held by Tommy Johnson (1927-28, 38 goals). The former Dortmund player, who has scored 10 goals this season in C1 (his record for one year), is now at 39 goals scored in all competitions in 2022-23. A record. Certainly not the last for the Haaland machine!
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