Manchester City’s Norwegian forward Erling Haaland will be the great offensive threat for Real Madrid in the Champions League league phase match that takes place this Wednesday at the Santiago Bernabéu, in which the whites will not be able to count on the presence of some of their best defenders such as Eder Militao, Dean Huijsen or Dani Carvajal.
Manchester City and Erling Haaland once again cross the path of Real Madrid in the Champions League. As has happened in the last four seasons, the English will visit the Santiago Bernabéu in the top continental competition, although this time it will not be in a tie. This does not mean that the match loses its importance, since the extreme situation of Xabi Alonso on the white bench raises the level of the match.
And in those, as has been happening since 2023, Haaland becomes the most dangerous player for the Madridistas, and although he has not been particularly good at this rival and does not arrive at his best moment, the Norwegian ‘giant’ is experiencing one of the best scoring starts of his career. The season hasn’t even reached January and the City forward has already accumulated two dozen goals between the Premier League (15) and the Champions League (5). Data that is only surpassed by Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane (27) and Real Madrid’s Frenchman Kylian Mbappé (25).
However, in recent games he has had a hard time finding the net. Since returning from the last international break, in which he scored four goals with the Norwegian team, the ‘cyborg’ has only managed to score one goal in the five games played – against Fulham in the Premier -. And neither in the defeats against Newcastle and Bayer Leverkusen, nor in the wins against Leeds and Sunderland was he accurate.
A lack of aim similar to the one he suffers when he has to face Real Madrid. This will be the sixth time he has done so, all of them with Manchester City, and his background is far from what a world-class striker can offer. He only scored in one of the games, specifically in the first leg of the playoff round last year, in which his double at the Etihad could not prevent the whites from winning 2-3, with a late comeback thanks to goals from Brahim Díaz and Jude Bellingham.
Thus, Haaland does not know what it is to celebrate a goal in a Madrid stadium, in which he has played two games. In them, Antonio Rüdiger, who will start again, has been his particular kryptonite with a sticky marking with which he could barely come into play both in the last precedent, the 3-3 in the first leg of the quarterfinals of the 2023-2024 season, where the Norwegian did not even shoot between the three sticks, and only finished once in the entire match, as in the first leg of the semifinals of the 2022-2023.
Now, in one of his best seasons and taking advantage of the losses of a Madrid defense that will be very depleted, Haaland wants to remove the thorn of visiting the Bernabéu and, for the first time, feel what it means to celebrate a goal in the white temple. In Madrid’s key, the mission is none other than to continue handcuffing the Norwegian and trust in another successful night from a Rüdiger less powerful than before, but who is the only healthy center back that Xabi Alonso has along with Raúl Asencio.