Erling Haaland’s historic night was nothing short of a heroic role for Manchester City in the pulverization of RB Leipzig on Tuesday evening. The big Norwegian had five goals within an hour, but was then taken to the side. Pep Guardiola explains why.
Erling Haaland was unstoppable on Tuesday night. The Norwegian striker was accurate five times in the Champions League match with RB Leipzig within an hour. His performance is expressed in these statistics.
Haaland’s historic evening in these insane stats
• Haaland is the third player to score five goals in one Champions League match. Lionel Messi did that in 2012 against Bayer Leverkusen and Luiz Adriano once boxed that for each other. On behalf of Shakhtar Donetsk, the Brazilian scored five goals in a group match against BATE Borisov in 2014.
• Haaland has now scored 30 goals in 25 Champions League games. That is an average of 1.2 goals per game. The Norwegian is the youngest player (22 years, 236 days) ever to reach the thirty-hit mark. In addition, no one managed to score the thirty goals in less than 25 games. The record was held by Ruud van Nistelrooij, who needed 34 matches for that.
• The three goals in the first half against RB Leipzig marked his fifth hat-trick this season for Haaland. Earlier Wolverhampton Wanderers, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace were already the victims. The last time a Premier League player scored five hat-tricks in a season was in 2016/17 (Harry Kane).
• Haaland is the Most Valuable Player in Europe and is at a lonely height. His league and Champions League goals and assists add up to 43. Of the top five leagues, only the stars of Paris Saint-Germain come close. Lionel Messi is at 34, Kylian Mbappé at 32 and Neymar at 28. Mohammed Salah is also at 28, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia at 26 and Victor Osimhen and Robert Lewandowski at 25.
Guardiola explains why he took Haaland to the side with five goals to his name
Haaland equaled the record of Lionel Messi, who also made five in 2012 against Bayer Leverkusen. Luiz Adriano also once made five in one game on behalf of Shakhtar Donetsk. Haaland had the opportunity to not only match that record, but also break it. But Guardiola did not like that and so he took his striker to the side.
“If he achieves that at the age of 22, life will be boring,” Guardiola said at the press conference afterwards. Now he has another goal to work towards. He continues, “No, I pulled him aside because the game was over.” With his five hits, Haaland is now on ten hits this season in the Champions League. He is also the top scorer in the Premier League with 28 goals.
He concludes, “What should I say? The problem is that he gets criticized as soon as he doesn’t score two or three goals. Today he made five in thirty to 35 ball contacts. That’s what we want, but it’s not easy. It’s hard to score when you don’t get many balls. Sometimes it’s him because he doesn’t move enough, but sometimes it’s also our fault, like last time against Leipzig.”
