|
Erling Haaland continued his stellar start with Borussia Dortmund scoring twice to lead them to a 2-1 win over Paris Saint-Germain in their Champions League round of 16 first leg on Tuesday. The Norwegian scored twice after half-time to take his Champions League tally to 10 goals to become the second youngest player to reach that mark after Kylian Mbappe. Haaland is also the only player to score for two teams in a single UCL season after netting eight for FC Salzburg before moving to Dortmund. "I still need to improve, keep working," Haaland said. "I want to go far in the Champions League. With the second goal I enjoyed the moment." Neymar was back in Thomas Tuchel's XI for the first time since a 5-0 thrashing of Montpellier at the beginning of February, with a rib injury keeping him on the sidelines for the Ligue 1 leaders. Dortmund's Jadon Sancho had a lively opening 30 minutes, forcing the action in his team's offensive end and forcing two saves from Keylor Navas to keep PSG on level terms. Haaland, who has been on fire since joining Dortmund, looked equally dangerous as the half wore and narrowly missed with a shot at the near post from a Sancho pass before the teams headed into the dressing rooms tied 0-0 at half-time. Dortmund finally found the back of the net when Haaland smashed home from close range after the ball fell to him following a goalmouth scramble to give his team a deserved lead. Neymar and Mbappe connected to get PSG back in the game, with the Brazilian burying his shot from close range to make it 1-1. But the heroics were left to Haaland once again, as he picked up a Gio Reyna assist on the counter-attack and unleashed an incredible shot from outside the penalty area to beat Navas and put his team back in the lead for good. Following the match, former Dortmund boss Tuchel said he had non regrets about his team selection and set up. "No regrets. It seems very easy to be a coach when you are not one," Tuchel said. "I have to make decisions and I did that -- now I will take responsibility for it. Nobody can know how a different system would have worked out. No regrets at all. "You can see [Dortmund] have played seven matches fewer than we have since January. They also had an extra day to recover." Haaland's 10 strikes puts him level with Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski for the most in the Champions League this season, while Reyna surpassed Gedion Zelalem as the youngest American to feature in the competition at 19 years and 97 days. PSG's Marquinhos was upbeat after the match as well, citing the importance of the away goal and conceding they had come up against a player in the mood to score. "We had the ball in the first half, yet we were not intense enough. We lost the ball often," Marquinhos said. "They tried to counter our mistakes and they managed to hurt us. "We handled the first half well, but we conceded two goals to small details and a striker with a taste for scoring. We got ourselves a goal that will be important for the second leg." PSG, who were eliminated at this stage of the competition in the previous three seasons, were almost completely shut out by an extremely efficient Dortmund backline, while Marco Verratti and Thomas Meunier will miss the return leg after picking up bookings. The two teams will meet again in Paris for the second leg on March 11 with a spot in the quarterfinals on the line. "Everyone played an outstanding game," Dortmund midfielder Emre Can said. "But it was important that we all defended extremely well. It was a big statement from the team, but we know it is not the end, it is just half-time."
|
PSG
