Manchester City striker Erling Haaland (22) single-handedly crushed Red Bull Leipzig’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League quarter-finals with an astonishing five-goal haul on Tuesday.
The former Borussia Dortmund forward was already on a hat-trick at half-time and he scored two more in the second half. Haaland became the third player in history to score five goals in a Champions League encounter after Barcelona’s Lionel Messi in 2012 and Shakhtar Donetsk’s Luiz Adriano in 2014.
Haaland has been praised for his instinctive finishes in front of goal and his constant activity in leading Manchester City’s line. The Norwegian international received the perfect 10/10 rating from the French outlet L’Équipe, who billed him as “from another galaxy“. It is the second time this season that Haaland has received the maximum grade from the notoriously harsh French daily. Back in October, he received a 10/10 rating for his incredible display (three goals and two assists) in his first Manchester derby against Manchester United, which City won 6-3.
Only Lionel Messi has received L’Équipe’s 10/10 rating twice before that. The Argentine was first praised for his quadruple of goals when eliminating Arsenal from the Champions League quarter-finals in 2010. Then, he scored five past Leverkusen in the Round of 16 two years later. The other players to receive a 10 from L’Equipe are Croatian goalie Dominik Livakovic, Nantes’ Alban Lafont, Kylian Mbappé, Serge Gnabry, Lucas Moura, Ajax’s Dusan Tadic, Neymar, Nice’s Carlos Eduardo, Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski, Aarhus’ goalkeeper Lars Windfeld, Russia’s Oleg Salenko and France’s U21 Franck Sauzée and Bruno Martini.
GFFN | Bastien Cheval
