Haaland sets memorable record in Champions League

Haaland's historic moment came in the 56th minute, in a very deadlocked match between Man City and Napoli despite having one more player and playing almost half the field. From a perfectly placed chip from Foden, Haaland swooped down and headed the ball past Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, the goalkeeper who had played very well since the start of the match.

This is Haaland's 50th goal in the Champions League and he surpassed his predecessor Ruud van Nistelrooy to become the new record holder of Europe's No. 1 arena. Haaland is the fastest player to reach 50 goals, far surpassing Van Nistelrooy when the former MU and Real Madrid striker needed 62 matches to reach 50 goals. In addition, the Norwegian striker also surpassed the legendary Alfredo Di Stefano, who had 49 goals, to enter the Top 10 players with the most goals in the C1 Cup/Champions League.

This goal was of great significance to Haaland and it was also Man City's salvation in a stalemate, when they kept shooting but could not beat the defense and the excellent goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic. In the first half, the Napoli goalkeeper had at least 3 consecutive excellent saves to stop Nico O'Reilly's header, Josko Gvardiol, or a good reflex to prevent Matteo Politano's clearance into his own net.

Eight minutes after Haaland scored, Man City doubled the lead. Doku, who had also played very well before, had a very high-class move. He dribbled past three Napoli defenders and then shot diagonally past the goalkeeper.

Leading 2-0, Man City were satisfied. They just passed the ball back and forth to "buy time". Pep Guardiola understood that he had to save his players for the big match with Arsenal at the weekend, while Napoli could not get close to Man City's penalty area. That's why the last 15 minutes were so sleepy. The match ended with a 2-0 victory and Man City took 3 points on a memorable day for Haaland.