Erling Haaland leads Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as Champions League champions.

Erling Haaland leads Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as Champions League champions.


Thursday night, Erling Braut Haaland became the third player to score five goals in a single Champions League game, after Luiz Adriano and Lionel Messi. This is not the only record of the young Argentinians for whom Haaland comes.

Haaland currently has 37 goals in 32 Champions League games, demonstrating the Norwegian's unique affinity to the competition. According to Marca, he was already among the 20 best scorers in the history of the Champions League, beating Arjen Robben out of 33. He also broke the all-time Manchester City goals record of 39 in 37 games.

Haaland also has the fastest and youngest 30-goal player in the Champions League. He did it in only 25 matches, defeating Lionel Messi's 48 almost twice as fast. The previous record was for Ruud van Nistlerooij of 34.

The great Norwegian has retaken the feat at 22 and 236 days, more than six months less than Messi, who did it at 23 and 131 days.

Today Messi will be on 129 goals, with Cristiano Ronaldo leading out of 141. While previously the pair had looked like they were going to set records to keep for decades, if Haaland can continue its form, then these records might not last a decade.

It may also show that European football is increasingly unequal. While Haaland has not been playing for Manchester City for long, the fact that the bigger teams are often able to run up the score on other sides may be a factor in these statistics going forward.

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