PARIS — Erling Haaland scored his 34th goal for club and country this season to give Manchester City a 2-1 win at Real Madrid yesterday as Arsenal maintained their perfect group stage record with a 3-0 victory at Club Brugge.
It was a second successive home defeat for Real following their 2-0 reverse against Celta Vigo at the weekend and heaped more pressure on coach Xabi Alonso, whose side have won just two of their last eight in all competitions.
For Haaland, though, this was a 21st goal in 21 City games this season and a 51st in 50 Champions League starts, while Nico O’Reilly scored his first goal in the competition.
“(The) game was a bit chaotic, we couldn’t really control it. We get the win in the end, super happy,” Haaland told TNT Sports, pointing to how important it was to bounce back from their home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen last time out.
“Two more games left. We need to finish strong and hopefully we can be in the first eight because then we’re through.”
Rodrygo gave Real, who were missing Kylian Mbappe, the lead just before the half-hour mark with a crisp shot across Gianluigi Donnarumma into the far corner.
But academy product O’Reilly equalised just seven minutes later, reacting quickest to prod home the loose ball from inside the six-yard box after Thibaut Courtois had saved Josko Gvardiol’s header.
And Haaland was able to fire City in front from the penalty spot on 43 minutes after VAR intervened to punish Antonio Rudiger for wrestling the Norwegian forward to the ground to prevent him reaching a cross.
It could have been worse for Real but Courtois redeemed himself somewhat for flapping at Gvardiol’s header with a crucial double save to deny Haaland and Rayan Cherki in quick succession as the half drew to a close.
It was a breathless end-to-end second half and Jude Bellingham could have done better than chip over the bar with only Donnarumma to beat, while Courtois made a fingertip save to deny Jeremy Doku.
Vinicius Jr. had a late chance to equalise but skied his volley after Donnarumma had come for and missed an inswinging corner.
Substitute Endrick also clipped the top of the bar with a header as Real pushed for a late equaliser.
“It’s a difficult moment for us and for (Alonso) as well. Things aren’t going well... we wanted to show people we’re together with the coach,” said Rodrygo, who hugged his under-fire boss on the side of the pitch after the match.
