Andreas Ulmer was on a pleasant stroll through Salzburg with his dog and newborn baby when a car blaring operatic music screeched into earshot.
It was the day before Ulmer's RB Salzburg side began their Champions League campaign at home to Genk in September 2019 and Erling Haaland was getting in the zone. Sat in his car, the then teenager was rocking out to the Champions League anthem at full volume.
Within two minutes of Haaland's debut in the competition, he scored his first goal. Suffice to say, it was not his last.
How many goals has Erling Haaland scored in the 2022/23 Champions League?
Just as he did on his Premier League debut for Manchester City, Haaland bagged a brace on his first Champions League appearance for Pep Guardiola's side.
Haaland opened the scoring in a 4-0 thumping of Sevilla - his favourite foes in European competition. The burly Norwegian has scored six goals in just three games against the Europa League specialists. Yassine Bounou made the mistake of goading Haaland after he saved his penalty in the 2021 last 16. Sevilla's keeper was adjudged to have strayed off his line and so Haaland was allowed to retake the spot kick which he converted with unbridled glee.
City's group-stage tie against Borussia Dortmund was ticking towards a 1-1 draw before Haaland acrobatically volleyed Joao Cancelo's outrageous cross past Alexander Meyer to snatch victory against his former employers. Guardiola reverently compared Haaland's winner to a Johan Cruyff classic.
In the space of 35 minutes on either side of half-time in the second leg of City's round of 16 tie against RB Leipzig, Haaland rattled in five goals. Only Lionel Messi and Luiz Adriano had ever bagged a quintuple in the Champions League's history but Haaland was visibly annoyed that his 62nd-minute substitution robbed him of the chance of a double hat-trick.
Haaland took his tally to a competition-high 12 with a goal home and away against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. No other player has ever scored more than a dozen Champions League goals in one season while playing for a Premier League club.
How many goals has Erling Haaland scored in the Champions League in his career?
Before turning 23, Haaland has plundered a frankly staggering 35 Champions League goals in just 29 appearances in Europe's elite competition.
Incredibly, Haaland has finished more Champions League games with multiple goals (11) than he has with just one (nine) or none (nine).
Haaland famously used the Champions League anthem as his alarm tone for years and he has perfected the art of arriving in the right place at the right time. Only one of his European goals has come from outside the penalty box, with Haaland scoring from an average distance of 9.5 yards.
The Norwegian prodigy needed a record-low 14 games to score 20 Champions League goals and hit the 30-mark after 25 European appearances - another new benchmark. Ruud van Nistelrooy holds the fragile record of taking just 45 games to score 40.
READ MORE ABOUT ERLING HAALAND'S FUTURE & GOALSCORING RECORDS HERE
How does Erling Haaland's Champions League goal record compare?
Haaland may have only made his debut in the competition in 2019 but is already rubbing shoulders with the game's greats in the scoring charts, sitting just one place below the top 20 most prolific players.
Ferenc Puskas, a three-time European Cup winner with Real Madrid, is Haaland's next target with 36 goals in the continent's biggest club competition - including four in the 1960 final against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Kylian Mbappe - framed as the only other talent of Haaland's generation that can compare to the Norwegian - has plundered 40 goals but has played more than twice as many matches as City's number nine.
While the likes of active stars Neymar (43), Mohamed Salah (44) and Thomas Muller (53) may be surpassed by Haaland in the near future, there is still a long way to go to penetrate the upper echelons of the list.
Cristiano Ronaldo (140) and Lionel Messi (129) sit first and second in the standings. Although, both legends may well have played the last Champions League match of their careers. With Ronaldo urging everyone to join him in Saudi Arabia and Messi bound for Inter Miami, 2023/24 promises to be the first Champions League season since 2001/02 to not feature either Messi or Ronaldo.
On this week's edition of Talking Transfers, part of the 90min podcast network, Scott Saunders is joined by Toby Cudworth and Graeme Bailey to discuss Ange Postecoglou's appointment at Spurs, Man Utd chasing Rasmus Hojlund, Harry Kane to Real Madrid, Lionel Messi & more!
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This article was originally published on 90min as How many goals has Erling Haaland scored in the Champions League?.
