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Erling Haaland loves the Champions League anthem. Back when he was first making his name in Europe’s top competition with Red Bull Salzburg, scoring a hat-trick in his first game against Genk and then netting against Liverpool at Anfield, he posted a video of him driving while listening to the iconic theme tune, composed by British musician Tony Britten.
While at Borussia Dortmund, where Haaland’s love affair with the competition continued, he revealed that he woke up everyday to the anthem as it was the alarm on his phone. And at his presentation with Manchester City, he admitted he had not changed the ringtone.
Well, now he might have to. The Champions League has been rebooted, and so has its anthem. To celebrate the new format, which was presented to the world in a glitzy advert featuring Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gianluigi Buffon and Haaland’s team-mates Rodri and Ruben Dias, Britten recorded a new, refined version of the anthem.
The new version, like the new format, riled plenty of traditionalists who are against anything new, but the song keeps all the elements of the original but is slicker. Haaland would certainly have no reason to dislike the ditty.
And the new format is also good news for the Norwegian, who has already made the competition his domain and won it while he was still 22. Now he has more games to fill his boots in the competition and catch Cristiano Ronaldo as the all-time top scorer.
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GettyMore games=more goals
The new Champions League format has been criticised for putting an extra strain on players and worsening the problem of fixture pile-up by adding two games in the initial ‘League Phase’ and another potential two in the play-offs. It is already having a knock-on effect on other competitions, too, such as the Carabao Cup.
But if what you crave the most is more fixtures between the biggest powers in the game, then the new-look competition is for you. And who wouldn’t want more blockbuster matches? Haaland and City begin their campaign on Wednesday against Inter in a repeat of the 2023 final. It is certainly more interesting than their opening game of the last campaign, against Red Star Belgrade.
City will also face Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain as well as Sporting CP and Feyenoord. They will also have games against the less storied teams of Europe, such as Sparta Prague, Slovan Bratislava and Club Brugge, and these are the games where Haaland can really do damage. He scored 10 goals in nine games in the group stages across his first two seasons with City and now has two extra games to increase his tally.
City are likely to finish among the top eight and qualify straight for the last 16, but should they fail to do so and instead come between ninth and 24th in the league table, they will have a two-legged play-off, offering further opportunities for Haaland to fatten his statistics.
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Getty ImagesMore records to come
Haaland made history in his very first appearance in the Champions League, Salzburg’s 6-2 thumping of Genk, by becoming the first and still only player to score a hat-trick on his competition debut. He soon became only the third player to score in his first five games after Alessandro del Piero and Diego Costa, but outscored both of them.
Soon after joining Dortmund, he became the youngest and fastest player to sore 15 goals in the competition, later repeating the feat in both categories for every goal bracket up to and including 40 goals. He is also the only player to score multiple times in four consecutive games and the only player to score more than one goal on his Champions League debut for three different clubs.
But plenty of more records are within his grasp. He is currently on 41 goals from 39 games, having only turned 24 in July. That means he is well on course to beat Lionel Messi’s record of being the youngest player to get to 50 goals, at 24 years and 284 days. He should also comfortably beat Ruud van Nistelrooy’s mark of 50 goals after 62 games and become the fastest to reach a half century.
Haaland is one of just three players, along with Messi and Luiz Adriano, to score five goals in a Champions League game, and had he not been taken off in the 63rd minute against RB Leipzig in 2023, he would have surely become the first to get a double hat-trick.
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Getty‘He feels clean’
Haaland finished top scorer in the Champions League in 2022-23, but looks even sharper this season after enjoying his longest-ever summer break and being able to switch off from football completely while on breaks in southern Europe and back in his native Norway.
“The difference this season is that after niggles, and tiredness in his body, this season he feels better,” Pep Guardiola explained ahead of the Inter game. “So far he feels clean, good here [in his head].”
Rodri also used Haaland’s terrifyingly good form to advocate for a kinder schedule for other players like himself who regularly compete in international tournaments. “Maybe Haaland is a good example; he had a long break, and you see how he’s performing right now,” said the Spaniard.
During City’s pre-season tour, Haaland said, “my body is fully rested, and I feel ready”, and he wasn’t lying. He has scored nine goals in his opening four games, breaking another Premier League record on Saturday, and is close to getting as many goals at the start of this campaign as Guardiola managed in 11 seasons as a player.
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GettyRonaldo in his crosshairs
Haaland began the season on 90 goals for City from 99 games, and after scoring in the opener against Chelsea on the opening weekend, Guardiola said the Norwegian’s numbers were on the same level as Messi and Ronaldo. He is now on 99 goals after 103 games, and if scores against Inter, he will beat Ronaldo’s record of scoring 100 goals for Real Madrid after 105 games. And that is not the only record Ronaldo should be concerned about.
The Portuguese probably thought his status as the top scorer in Champions League history was safe after Messi left Paris Saint-Germain for Inter Miami in 2023 on 129 goals in the competition, 11 shy of Ronaldo’s record tally of 140. Ronaldo played 183 Champions League games – also a record – across 19 seasons, with his last game coming at the age of 37.
Haaland has only recently turned 24 and has played just five seasons in the Champions League. If he can sustain his current rate of scoring and avoid any major injuries, Haaland will catch Ronaldo after just 133 games, by the time he will be 34.
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Mbappe can spur him on
There is a danger that Kylian Mbappe, 17 months older than Haaland, will get there first, as the France striker is on 49 Champions League goals. But he has played 74 games and his strike rate of 0.66 goals per game is far inferior to Haaland’s, which stands at 1.05 goals per game.
Haaland has no serious rival in the Premier League when it comes to his scoring feats, especially after Harry Kane left for the Bundesliga. Perhaps Mbappe, who is now playing for European football’s aristocrats in Real Madrid, can spur Haaland on to even greater heights.
After all, Ronaldo reached his peak around the 2011-12 season, when he was 26. His greatest campaign in the Champions League, when he scored a record 17 times in 2013-14, came when he was 29. Messi’s biggest tallies in La Liga and the Champions League were also in 2011-12, his 25th year.
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GettyNew era
There is a genuine prospect, then, that Haaland’s peak is still to come, and his numbers could get even better. Guardiola, for what it’s worth, remarked that he is happy with his striker’s current level.
“I don’t expect every game for Haaland to score two, three, two goals every game. I don’t expect that! The moment that that doesn’t happen, it’s not a problem because I know the quality is there,” he said. “He can evolve, but if you tell me that in the next 100 games he will score another 99 goals, for me it’s fine. If they don’t want to improve, don’t improve, score 99 goals in the next 100 games.”
Even if he just maintains his current level and we are witnessing Haaland’s peak, it comes in an era when there will be more Champions League games and more opportunities to close in on Ronaldo.
No one can take away what Ronaldo did in the Champions League, and the new format means that some of his other records, such as scoring 11 goals in a six-game group stage or netting in all games in the group stage (which he shares with Sebastian Haller) are safe forever. But this is a new era of the Champions League, with a different format and even a different theme tune – and it belongs to Haaland.
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