On Tuesday, Manchester City’s star striker Erling Haaland scored a record-breaking five goals in the Champions League round of 16 second leg against RB Leipzig. In this season, Haaland has scored 39 goals for Manchester City, in which he surpassed the mark of 38 goals earlier set by Tommy Johnson during 1928-29.
With this performance, Erling Haaland became the fastest and youngest player to reach 30 goals in the competition. Earlier, it was Kylian Mbappe (22 years, 352 days) who achieved his 30th goal when he was 22 years, 352 days old, but Haaland, who is 22 years, 236 days old, surpassed him on the night. He ended the match with 33 from 25 UCL goals.
Talking about his spectacular performance, Haaland said, “I’m blurry in my head. Ii remember shooting but not thinking. It’s a big night. Firstly, I’m proud to play in this competition; I love it. Five goals to win 7-0 is amazing.”
“My super strength is scoring goals. Should I be honest? A lot of goals today, I didn’t think. I was just trying to get in into the back of the net. A lot of it is being quick in the mind and trying to put it where the goalkeeper is not,” he added. Before being substituted by Per Guardiola, Haaland scored three more goals before 57 minutes to reach his total of five and put his side up 6-0 on the night.
The hosts went on to win the match 7-0, with Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan also scoring as Man City advanced to the quarterfinals on the back of an 8-1 aggregate win.
Haaland, who has now scored 10 goals in six Champions League games this season, said the team dedicated time in training to work on pressing on the eve of the clash. “Especially at home, we have to run and press. We are so good at getting the ball,” he said. “I think we can use [pressing] more, there is more space for the guys in between to play.
