Haaland show gives City genuine Europe hope

Left hand raised, five fingers spread, Erling Haaland waved. Champions League knockout games involving Manchester City can have their fans dining on fingernails. There is still time for that, still time for Pep Guardiola to overthink, but five games away from breaking a competition title duck, they can hope. As talk of whether this will be Arsenal’s season in the Premier League gathers momentum, so will City and Europe. It went on air around the 50-minute mark on Tuesday.

By then, Haaland had scored four but was still not done for the night. Another reflex save from Janis Blaswich and another half-volleyed goal from the 22-year-old goal machine. As the Norwegian man-mountain goofed around and his mates converged to celebrate, Josko Gvardiol came into the television frame, fleetingly. A generational talent, the man who had a wonderful World Cup barring being hypnotised by Lionel Messi once, was seen cupping his mouth before the gloved hands slid to his hips.

Even Messi hadn’t made him feel this helpless. Almost an hour ago, Haaland had glided past him even though Gvardiol had a 10m headstart. Disbalanced, Gvardiol had nudged him from behind but as he tumbled, Haaland sped on. It was one of the few moves involving Haaland that came to nothing because he was ruled off-side. He had eight shots, all on target, and five goals. There are fewer unstoppable forces than him in football now.

Gvardiol had risen highest to keep RB Leipzig in the round-of-16 tie. But at City’s home, they were, in the words of right back Benjamin Henrichs, “eaten up.” A tie lost 1-8 on aggregate after a 0-7 defeat couldn’t have been summed up better from the point of the vanquished.

It was Henrichs’ handball that started the rout. The penalty from nowhere was the kind of luck City would have wished they could preserve for tighter games to comes but Haaland slotted home. This was his sixth penalty this term. His conversion rate? 100%.

Barely had Leipzig restarted that Haaland struck again. It was his pressuring Blaswich that led to a hurried hoof and when it was returned by Manuel Akanji, Haaland twisted and cushioned it for Kevin de Bruyne with a header. De Bruyne’s brilliant drive banged into the horizontal and there was Haaland to head home, City’s artist and the annihilator in concert.

All of Haaland’s goals came from the ability to sniff where the loose ball could land inside the area; the hat-trick happened when he fetched up as John Stones’ header rolled along the goalline and Amadou Haidara had tried to clear.

But knowing Guardiola does not like it when a player is only in the box even if he is this prolific (39 goals in 36 games, a season record for City breaking Tommy Jones’ mark set in 1928-29), Haaland was on central defender Willi Orban in the first minute. Seconds later, he had dropped into his half. For the 62 minutes that he was on, Haaland did that. Guardiola denied him a chance of a second hattrick, he joked about the substitution. Only two players, Messi and Luiz Adriano, had scored five in a Champions League game. No one has got six.

"If he achieved this milestone, the record, at 22, will be boring, his life, so now he'll have a target to do it in the future, here and everywhere," said Guardiola. "So that's why I make a substitution."

Attempting more touches outside the penalty area is part of Haaland’s understanding of how City play. By attempting to release him quickly, something they did not do in Leipzig, City too played to Haaland’s strength. There have been times when Haaland has looked disconnected and isolated but on Tuesday it wasn’t so.

“He is a gift to all of us. He is a huge competitor, his mentality is there,” said Guardiola. "He scored goals with the foot and head, won second balls, deep runs. It looked really simple,” said Leipzig manager Marco Rose.

Simple indeed because Haaland said his “super strength is scoring goals.” The youngest and fastest to get past 30 goals in the Champions League (he has 33 in 25 games), Haaland said most goals are about “being quick in the mind and trying to put it where the goalkeeper is not.”

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