PROFILE: Erling Haaland: 20-year-old record-breaking football machine

ISTANBUL

One of the most promising young football stars, Erling Haaland has already his name written in letters of gold in sports history.

Haaland of Borussia Dortmund was born in July 21, 2000 in Leeds, the UK, as his father Alf-Inge Haaland was playing for Manchester City after leaving Leeds United in the English Premier League.

The 20-year-old, who is the hero of the young generation of Norway, became a record-breaking player whose international fame has improved worldwide.

Scoring twice against Spain's Sevilla in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday, Haaland became the youngest player to net 20 goals in the tournament.

He only appeared in 14 matches to score 20 goals as he outperformed Poland's Robert Lewandowski, Argentina's Lionel Messi, and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo.

Haaland scored 19 goals before turning 21 to equal France's Kylian Mbappe. He also bested his countryman Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, becoming the highest-scoring player from Norway in the UEFA Champions League history.

In the first leg game against Sevilla, Haaland became the quickest player to score 10 goals for a team in the competition.

With this achievement, the Norwegian star broke Dutch legend Roy Makaay's record with Germany's Bayern Munich in 10 games during the 2003-2004 season.

The forward also became the fifth player in the Champions League history to net twice in three games in a row, following Italy's Filippo Inzaghi, Brazil's Giovane Elber and Ronaldo – three times – and Lewandowski.

In the 2019-2020 season, Haaland became the first teenager to score in the first UEFA Champions League matches in a row. He, not surprisingly, won the 2020 Golden Boy award.

For an interesting statistic, Haaland scored a whopping nine goals for Norway against Honduras in a U-20 World Cup match in May 2019. The match, where Honduras ended up with just nine men on the field, finished 12-0.

Nearly breaks world 60m record in Champions League game

At the age of 20, he has already produced more goals in the UEFA Champions League than some legendary players like Brazil's Ronaldo Nazario, France's Zinedine Zidane, and Germany's Miroslav Klose.

The Borussia Dortmund star became the club's first-ever player to score in a debut match in the German Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, as well as the Champions League.

During a Champions League game against France's Paris Saint Germain on Feb. 18, 2020, the Norwegian wonder kid covered 60 meters of the green field in 6.64 seconds, only 0.3 seconds shy of the world record.

The record is 6.34 seconds set by American sprinter Christian Coleman as he performed it at the 2018 USATF Indoor Championships in New Mexico.

Haaland made his way to Bundesliga as Dortmund purchased him from Austria's Red Bull Salzburg for €20 million ($23 million) transfer fee at the beginning of January 2020.

Having scored 29 goals in 27 matches for his previous club RB Salzburg, Haaland maintained his impressive performance with Borussia Dortmund.

He has produced 47 goals and 11 assists in 47 matches so far in all competitions in the 2020-2021 season.