Manchester City striker Erling Haaland put on a show for football fans in the 7-0 (8-1 on aggregate) victory over RB Leipzig on Tuesday at the Etihad Stadium.
Haaland scored five goals in 57 minutes and the Norway international made history in the process, joining a club with only one member: Lionel Messi. The 22-year-old and Messi are the only two players to score five goals at the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League.
🐐 The only 2 players to score 5 goals at the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League;
🥇🇦🇷Lionel Messi vs Bayer Leverkusen
🥈🆕🇳🇴Erling Haaland vs RB Leipzig🖐️Both of them did it under Pep Guardiola!
🔝 Legendary Performance#Messi𓃵|#Haaland|#MCIRBL|#UCL pic.twitter.com/SivjIFniGo
— FIFA World Cup Stats (@alimo_philip) March 14, 2023
The Paris Saint-Germain star scored five goals in 2012 when FC Barcelona defeated Bayer Leverkusen 7-1 in the second leg (10-2 on aggregate). Along with both players haunting two German clubs, the manager guiding these two was Pep Guardiola.
Nonetheless, Guardiola did pull Haaland out of the game before the forward could score a sixth goal and set a new record. It will be interesting to see if the Spanish coach rethinks his remarks from last October when asked to compare the two players.
“Nothing is comparable with Leo [Messi],” Guardiola told reporters (h/t GOAL). “People keep saying ‘Erling with Leo’, I don’t think we have any other. How many new Messis are appearing in world football since I started? 10 or 15, but they all fail.”
Messi and PSG wished the 2022 FIFA World Cup winner had dialed in that type of performance against Bayern Munich last Wednesday at Allianz Arena, as the capital club would lose 2-0 (3-0 on aggregate) and crash out in the Round of 16 again.
