Manchester City’s Champions League campaign is up and running with a victory.
On Thursday night at the Etihad, the 2023 winners beat Napoli 2-0 to commence the league phase with three points.
The key flash point of the first half was the red card shown to the visitors’ captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo, dismissed by referee Felix Zwayer for a foul on Erling Braut Håland, deemed to be the denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity.
The match remained goalless for almost an hour, Antonio Conte’s team staying compact and defending resolutely, featuring an extraordinary goal-line clearance from Matteo Politano on the cusp of half time.
Nevertheless, in the end, Man City did find the breakthrough, with Phil Foden’s chipped through-ball picking out Håland whose looping header beat Vanja Milinković-Savić, before Jérémy Doku lashed home the clincher a mere seven minutes later.
In last season’s Champions League, Pep Guardiola’s team only managed victories against Slovan Bratislava, Sparta Prague and Club Brugge, not exactly European juggernauts, so will be pleased to have overcome the reigning Scudetto holders.
It was a record-breaking night for one Man City player, while another showed his class, on a night when a returning Sky Blue great enjoyed an inauspicious home coming.
Erling Braut Håland's record breaking night
On a Champions League night, you can almost always rely on Erling Braut Håland to score a goal.
His header to break the deadlock was his 50th in the Champions League, bagging eight for RB Salzburg, 15 in the yellow of Borussia Dortmund and now 27 for Manchester City.
This makes him, by some considerable distance, the fastest player to this landmark in the competition’s history, as indicated below.
Here’s a mind-blowing piece of information for you, courtesy of Will Jeanes of the Athletic.
On 18 September 2007, Ruud van Nistelrooy scored for Real Madrid against Werder Bremen to become the fastest player to 50 European Cup or Champions League goals, breaking Raúl’s record, doing so in his 62nd appearance in the tournament.
Well, exactly 18 years to the day later, this record is shattered by Håland, who has reached 50 goals in just 49 games, very much with his sights set on Cristiano Ronaldo’s all-time record of 140.
However, the big Norwegian centre-forward was not the only man to impress in Sky Blue.
Manchester City's new Kevin De Bruyne
All the pre-match discussion ahead of Napoli’s visit to the Etihad was about the swift homecoming of Kevin De Bruyne; whoever at UEFA headquarters decided to put this fixture on matchday one knew what they were doing!
However, the night certainly did not go how the Belgian would have dreamt it, hooked after 20 minutes through no fault of his own, simply sacrificed by Conte, replaced by left-back Mathías Olivera, following Di Lorenzo’s aforementioned red card.
During his time in Manchester, De Bruyne and Håland directly combined for 25 goals, eight more than any other player in the goal machine’s career; Marco Reus the man second on this list.
Instead of coming back to haunt the club who declined the opportunity to extend his contract, De Bruyne got to watch on like the rest of us as Foden staked a claim to be the heir to his vacant throne.
Chalkboard
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At the weekend, the England international’s header to break the deadlock in the Manchester derby was his first Premier League goal since netting against Chelsea on 25 January, a draught of 232 days.
Then, in this match, his impudent assists teed up Håland to make the breakthrough, and the statistics below highlight how impactful he was throughout, having been handed an 8/10 match rating by the MEN.
Assists
1
1st
Accurate passes
56
8th
Shots on target
1
2nd
Key passes
8
1st
Big chances created
1
1st
Accurate crosses
11
1st
Touches
82
6th
Average SofaScore rating
7.6
5th
As the table documents, Foden was the creative hub of Manchester City’s team against Napoli, registering four more key passes than anyone else, as well as nine more accurate crosses than any other member of the Citizens’ squad.
Last season was frankly miserable for Foden, scoring just ten goals and accumulating four assists across the Premier League and Champions League, having registered 24 goals and 11 assists the season before, named PFA Players’ Player of the Year and Football Writers’ Player of the Year as a result.
Nevertheless, after scoring three times during the Club World Cup in the summer, there are further signs that Foden is getting back to his best.
Thus, he will surely be in Guardiola’s starting lineup for Sunday’s huge clash with Arsenal in North London, hoping he can live up to the departed De Bruyne’s legacy.
