Sports
Haaland tipped to break Messi, Ronaldo’s Champions League records
Manchester City defender, John Stones, has claimed that his teammate Erling Haaland will break the UEFA Champions League records of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo after his incredible display against RB Leipzig on Wednesday.
Haaland recently broke a long-standing record at Man City by becoming the club’s all-time leading scorer for a single season, with 39 goals.
The Norway international scored five goals in Man City’s Champions League last-16 second-leg 7-0 victory over RB Leipzig.
He now has 33 goals from just 25 Champions League games so far in his career.
But Stones believes that Haaland has the potential to emulate the incredible goal-scoring feats of Messi and Ronaldo, who have scored 129 and 140 goals, respectively, in Europe’s elite club competition.
“How do I go about this without putting pressure on Erling?” Stones said via Mirror Football when quizzed about Haaland emulating Ronaldo and Messi in the Champions League.
“He’d probably thrive off it. I believe he really could do what he wants, just from his hunger, his attitude and his professionalism and I’d love to see him do it, definitely.’
“I think he wants to just win. I think if you have that mentality, then the personal accolades just come naturally without chasing them. That could be totally wrong, but I think Erling is a huge team player and with that kind of mindset, he is going that way to break more records.”
Liverpool winger, Mohamed Salah, on Saturday, surpassed Chelsea legend, Frank Lampard’s goal record in the Premier League.
The Egyptian international achieved the feat after scoring a brace in Liverpool’s away Premier League 2-0 win against Bournemouth.
The match was played at the Vitality Stadium as Salah netted a penalty in the first half and another goal in the second half.
Salah’s two goals means, the former Chelsea and AS Roma star has now surpassed Lampard as 6th all time goal scorer in Premier League history.
The 32-year-old now has 178 Premier League goals with a goal ahead of Lampard, who now sit in 7th position on the all-time Premier League goal scorers chat.
He is, however, behind the likes of Alan Shearer, Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney, Andrew Cole and Sergio Aguero in the goal chat.
Salah has scored 21 goals for the Reds so far this season.
He could leave Liverpool in the summer as he is yet to sign a new deal.
His contract with Arne Slot’s side will expire at the end of the season.
The Confederation of African Football, CAF, on Friday announced the full match schedule for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.
Nine venues will be used across six cities for the continent’s flagship soccer event.
Hosts Morocco will will take on Comoros in the competition’s opening game at the newly-built 69,500-seater Complexe Sportif Prince Moulay Abdellah in Rabat on Sunday, December 21.
The country’s capital, Rabat, will have four match venues.
Other host cities are Casablanca, Agadir, Marrakech, Fes and Tangier, which will have one match each.
The four quarter-final fixtures will be played at the Sportif Prince Moulay Abdellah in Rabat, as well as in Tangier, Marrakech and Agadir.
The semi-finals will be in Rabat and Tangier, with the third-place play-off set for the Stade Mohammed V in Casablanca.
52 matches will be played during the biennial competition.
The Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire are the defending champions of the competition.
The draw for this season’s UEFA Champions League knockout phase play-off draw has been conducted on Friday.
Eight teams have progressed straight to the round of 16 following the completion of the league phase.
They are Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa.
They will all return to the competition in March, but others have more football to play before then.
The teams that finished between 9th and 24th, have a two-legged play-off to navigate in February.
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