Invisible in the first leg, Erling Haaland responded to his detractors in the most beautiful way.
The Norwegian scored a quintuple in sixty minutes against RB Leipzig to secure a place in the quarter-finals of the Champions League (7-0, aggregate score 8-1).
Gündogan and De Bruyne scored the remaining two goals.
RB Leipzig had however moved to Manchester with the best intentions in the world and are trying to establish intense pressing in the Mancunian half of the field.
But the City machine quickly gets going: De Bryune crosses for Gundogan at the far post.
The latter takes off too much his half-volley which flies into the stands of the Etihad stadium (3rd).
Contentious arbitration decisions and Haaland
Erling Haaland shows up quickly.
A long ball from Nathan Aké towards the Norwegian who passes between Josko Gvardiol and Willi Orban.
But he lost his first duel against Blaswich (10th).
Grealish takes a good combination with Nathan Aké then the Norwegian tries his luck (16th).
The situation is finally unblocked on a more than contentious penalty.
VAR signals a hand from Henrichs for brushing against Akandji's head behind his back.
Erling Haaland does not need to be asked to score in the small right net when Blaswich had dived on the right side (22nd, 1-0).
His second goal in stride, however, is much less contentious: on a clearance by RB Leipzif goalkeeper, Kevin De Bruyne presses and recovers.
His shot ends on the crossbar but Erling Haaland followed and finished close to the head (22nd, 2-0).
On the other hand, there followed a again very contentious arbitration decision against RB Leipzig.
While the German club had their first highlight, Ederson made a more than hazardous exit from his area and mowed down Timo Werner.
The slow motion suggests that the Brazilian should have been sanctioned but, to top it off, it was the striker who received a yellow card for protest (34th).
The Red Bull club accuses the blow and Manchester City drives the point home.
On the corner of Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias sees his head pushed back by the left post of Janis Blaswich.
Erling Haaland ends up as a surface fox (45th + 2).
5 - Erling Haaland is the 3rd player to score 5 goals in a Champions League game after Luiz Adriano in October 2014 (with Shakhtar Donetsk against BATE Borisov) and Lionel Messi in March 2012 (with Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen).
Garden.
pic.twitter.com/MHSFvmhPcv
— OptaJean (@OptaJean) March 14, 2023
The second half is only a long suffering for the Germans: Gündogan cleans the skylight from the left (49th) while Haaland scores two additional goals (53rd, 58th).
His coach Pep Guardiola even offers himself the luxury of taking him out when his player could have improved the records of Adriano and Messi, the only other players to have scored a quintuplet in the Champions League.
The end of the match is anecdotal, despite a goal from De Bruyne at the end of the match (90th + 1, 7-0).
Europe has been warned.
Erling Haalanb is on a mission to bring Manchester City the first Champions League in their history.
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