Prime sniper – Newspaper Kommersant No. 64 (7509) of 04/13/2023

The first of two matches in the most prestigious Champions League quarter-final confrontation brought Manchester City an unexpectedly convincing 3-0 victory over Bayern, and another goalscoring achievement for Manchester phenom Erling Haaland. The goal against Munich was his 45th of the season, and this is a new record for the players of the English Premier League (EPL).

This match, in which Manchester City surprisingly defeated another Champions League favorite and, it seems, turned the second leg into a pure formality, naturally gave a lot of topics for heated discussions among those whose profession is to analyze football. Well, let’s say that the BBC and L’Equipe were happy to sort out the brutal Manchester pressure, which, it seems, became a surprise for Bayern, although it seems that their new coach Thomas Tuchel, who recently worked at Chelsea, should have prepared for it, and were amazed at the suppleness and twitchiness of the usually much stronger and calmer Munich defense.

But the main theme was still simple and understandable and required not long disputes, but the usual fixation. Plus savoring. Such as on BT Sport, where the former German striker Mario Gomez, invited to the role of an expert, called Erling Haaland a “monster” and a “monster”, or on the BBC: there the former midfielder of the England national team Owen Hargreaves said that he had never been a more dangerous and spectacular player than the Norwegian did not see.

It was a classic, one might say, match for the 22-year-old Haaland, whom Manchester City in the summer of 2022 so well for themselves bought at Borussia Dortmund.

During the game, he touched the ball 28 times – fewer than any other player who came to her in the starting lineup in the Manchester or Munich jersey. But the benefits of these touches were colossal. It was Haaland who gave the pass to Bernard Silva in the second half with a score of 1:0, who hit the gates of Bayern, and it was he who scored the third goal for her, apparently ruining all the intrigue in the confrontation.

This goal was the 11th goal for the Norwegian prodigy in the current Champions League draw and the 45th if we take all the official competitions of the current season. And 45 is a terribly remarkable number.

Those who love football statistics will surely remember that in 2012, Lionel Messi, then still young, ended the season with 73 goals. And Holann, of course, can no longer reach this bar. But Messi scored the lion’s share of these goals – fifty – in the not very competitive Spanish championship, speaking for Barcelona, ​​which at that time swept away local outsiders.

The value of Haaland’s figures is that they were obtained thanks to fantastic performance in the most prestigious European Cup, as well as the densest of the national championships.

And for the players of the English Premier League, founded in 1992, his 45 goals is an absolute record. The co-owners of the former – 44 – were the Dutchman Ruud van Nistelrooy and the Egyptian Mohamed Salah. Van Nistelrooy shone 20 years ago with Manchester United, Salah six with Liverpool.

But there is a nuance. Both Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mohamed Salah reached 44 goals, having spent 52 games each. Erling Haaland 45 knocked out in just 39 encounters. In other words, his average performance exceeds the ball per game, and even the strongest scorers in the National Hockey League do not dream of such a goal.

And in the calendar of the season, meanwhile, Manchester City still have quite a few matches left. There are nine in the league, at least one in the FA Cup, a semi-final against Sheffield United, and now it is clear that there will definitely be more than one in the Champions League. So, theoretically, Erling Haaland could also take a swing at her goalscoring record – Cristiano Ronaldo’s 17 goals for Real Madrid nine years ago. At least, given the form and productivity of the Norwegian, the pursuit of him does not look like something from the realm of fantasy.

Alexey Dospekhov