French Ivorian striker Sébastien Haller does not do things by halves. For the sake of the first day of Champions’ League season 2021/2022, the most prestigious football competition for clubs and the one every single player wants to play, the Ajax Amsterdam forward was one fire.
The first game of Ajax in the tournament ended up in a genuine demonstration on the lands of Sporting Portugal (1-5) with not less than four goals for Haller. Eligible to the French jersey but determined to play for the Elephants of Ivory Coast (six calls and three goals), the 27-year-old player was playing his first game ever in Champions’ League.
His performance and his four goals are about to make history because there is only one player who achieved such a prestation: in the nineties, Dutch striker Marco Van Basten also accomplished the incredible act of scoring four goals for a first game of Champions’ League. And if you take into account the fact that Van Basten already played in Champions’ League before the reform of the competition in 1992, then Haller is the one and only. Not bad for a first game.
The three points acquired in Lisbon, with the manner, are a perfect start for the Dutch squad in a C group which is quite homogenous with teams like Besiktas Istanbul and Borussia Dortmund. Thanks to their win over the Turkish team, the Germans of Dortmund, led by their Norwegian star Erling Haaland, are sharing the first place of the group with Ajax Amsterdam.
On September 28, the teammates of Sébastien Haller will host Besiktas to try to get a second consecutive victory and thus feel a bit more comfortable in this group. But in such a tournament, time and history are always here to remind you that no victory must be taken for granted.
Sources: www.lequipe.fr
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