ERLING HAALAND MAINTAINED his incredible start to life at Manchester City as the Norway striker’s double inspired a 4-0 rout of Sevilla in Tuesday’s Champions League opener.
Haaland’s latest display of his sublime predatory instincts ensured City started their Group G campaign in emphatic fashion at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium.
The 22-year-old put City ahead in the first half and he netted again after the interval as Phil Foden and Ruben Dias also scored.
Guardiola this week insisted City cannot pin all their Champions League hopes on Haaland.
But he has made an incredible start to his City career following his £51 million move from Borussia Dortmund, scoring 12 goals in just seven games in all competitions.
Haaland has scored 25 times in 20 Champions League games, a tally that now includes goals on his debuts in the competition for City, Dortmund and Red Bull Salzburg.
City’s stroll in southern Spain was just what the Premier League champions needed after the frustration of Saturday’s draw at Aston Villa.
Pitted in a group also featuring Dortmund and FC Copenhagen, City will expect to qualify comfortably if Haaland continues this kind of form.
But only winning the Champions League for the first time will make City’s season a complete success after so many years of painful failure in the competition.
Elsewhere in Group G, Borussia Dortmund continued their impressive start to the season as Jude Bellingham scored in a comfortable 3-0 Champions League home win over FC Copenhagen on Tuesday.
After a furious opening half dominated by the home side, Marco Reus dribbled past two Copenhagen defenders before hammering the ball past Australian goalkeeper Mathew Ryan on 35 minutes.
Just seven minutes later, American forward Giovanni Reyna — who was subbed on for the injured Thorgan Hazard in the 23rd minute — set Raphael Guerreiro up for an easy tap-in to double his side’s lead. As the game wore on, Dortmund continued their dominance and went close several times through the creative Julian Brandt, before Bellingham converted another assist from Reyna in the 83rd minute.
In Group H, Kylian Mbappe produced two lethal first-half finishes as Paris Saint-Germain got their latest bid for Champions League success off to a winning start by beating Juventus 2-1 at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday.
Mbappe’s two goals were stunning, the first coming after an outrageous scooped assist by Neymar inside five minutes and the second at the end of a superb move midway through the first half.
PSG were cruising at half-time before being given a wake-up call early in the second half as substitute Weston McKennie headed Juventus back into the game.
Yet Juve are a faded force compared to just a few years ago and came to the French capital without several key players, including former PSG star Angel Di Maria.
They could not find an equaliser and the Parisians claimed their first three points in Group H, leaving them level with Benfica, who beat Maccabi Haifa 2-0.
In Group E, following Chelsea’s shock loss away to Dinamo Zagreb, Italian champions AC Milan were held to a 1-1 draw away to RB Salzburg.
RB Leipzig, meanwhile, were shocked 4-1 at home to Shakhtar Donetsk, a remarkable result given war has now deracinated Shakhtar for a second time in eight years. They will play their home games in Poland, but won away tonight, in spite of seeing more than 12 first-team players leave the club during the summer.
Champions League Matchday One results
Group E
Dinamo Zagreb 1-0 Chelsea
RB Salzburg 1-1 AC Milan
Group F
Celtic 0-3 Real Madrid
RB Leipzig 1-4 Shakhtar Donetsk
Group G
Borussia Dortmund 3-0 FC Copenhagen
Sevilla 0-4 Man City
Group H
PSG 2-1 Juventus
Benfica 2-0 Maccabi Haifa
– © AFP 2022, with reporting by Gavin Cooney
