Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo they have dominated world football for the past 15 years. Each Ballon d’Or gala has recognized them as the best players of this century, thanks to the barbarity of goals they have scored with their respective clubs. Their numbers are simply impressive, so it is absurd to think that there is any player capable of facing them. However, there is. His name is Erling Haaland and last Tuesday he has once again shown that he is ready to take the scepter and be the successor of one of the two cracks.
Against RB Leipzig, for the second leg of the round of 16, Haaland shone with a répoker for the Manchester City classification. Such a performance has allowed the Norwegian striker to reach 30 Champions League goals at just 22 years and 236 days.
The brand belonged to Lionel Messi, who reached that figure when he turned 23 years and 131 days old. However, the former Barcelona soccer player and now a PSG star needed 48 games, almost twice as many as the Norwegian. Kylian Mbappé, for his part, reached 30 goals at 22 years and 352 days.
The poker game against Leipzig shows that Haaland is on his way to breaking all the early records in Europe. As the statistics reflect, the top scorers in the competition, in their first 25 games, were far from the ‘Vikingo’. Lewandowski scored 15, Benzema 13, Messi 12, Raúl 11 and Cristiano Ronaldo, in white.
Haaland has reached this figure having played only 22 games in three clubs: Salzburg, (8 goals), Borussia Dortmund (15 goals), and Manchester City (10 goals to date). Compared to the 2 greats of this century, Cristiano Ronaldo needed 76 games to score Haaland’s 33 goals, while Leo Messi achieved it after 52 games.
The third with a poker
The Norwegian forward also became the third player to score five goals in a Champions League duel. The first to achieve this was the Argentine Lionel Messi in the 7-1 defeat of Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen on March 7, 2012 in the second leg of the round of 16 and at minutes 25, 42, 49, 58 and 84.
Then he did it, on October 21, 2014, the Brazilian Luiz Adriano, two of them from penalties, in Shakhtar Donetsk’s 7-0 win over BATE Borisov in the group stage.
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