English
Dortmund: Erling Haaland scored twice in a dramatic 2-2 draw between Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla FC in a round of 16 Champions League clash on Tuesday. Despite the draw, Dortmund progressed to the quarterfinals on 5-4 aggregate and will know their opponents for the next stage when the draw is made on March 19.
Haaland set a number of record during the contest as he gave his team the lead 10 minutes before the scheduled half-time break. Marco Reus played the provider with the Norwegian tapping in past Sevilla goalkeeper Yassine Bounou for his 19th goal of the competition.
His second strike came under much more dramatic circumstances in the second half. After breaking through the Sevilla defence, Haaland had doubled his team’s lead but the goal was ruled out for a foul. However, in a stunning turn of events, the assistant video referee awarded the hosts a penalty for a shirt-pull by Jules Kounde earlier.
But Bounou saved both the Haaland spotkick and the follow-up as well.
Drama continued.
VAR then deemed Bounou had moved early off his line resulting in the penalty being retaken and this time, Haaland coolly converted it showing immense resilience under crushing pressure.
With a 5-2 advantage, it was the hosts’ game to lose before Sevilla gave hopes of a comeback. Youssef En-Nesyri converted a spot-kick in the 68th minute to cut down the lead before leaving Dortmund nervous when he equalised in the stoppage time (96th minute).
However, Dortmund held on for a draw.
Haaland thus became the quickest ever to score 20 goals in Champions League in just his 14th appearance and also became the first two score two or more goals in four successive games in the European competition.
Erling, 20, also became the youngest to score most CL goals before 21, going past the earlier record held by Frenchman Kylian Mbappe who had 19.
“First of all, it was a nice goal before but then it was penalty and then I missed and then (Bounou ) cheated and I took it again and then I scored when he didn’t cheat,” Haaland was quoted as saying by ESPN of his penalty. “It was exact the same but then he stood on the line and first he didn’t stand on the line. ”
“To be honest, I was nervous a little bit for the second one, but after he was screaming in my face after the first one, I was thinking it would be even better to score another goal. That’s what happened, and that was nice,” he added.
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