Looking at the odds for the winner of this year’s Champions League, Manchester City and not the current winner Real Madrid tops the list. The reason is simple – the Citizens have Erling Haaland. He has already became a force in the Premier League and on his debut in tonight’s Champions League, he showed to everybody that he will be a key player in Guardiola’s eternal attempt to win the competition outside Barcelona. The Norwegian strike scored a brace against Seville, and with those goals, he now has 25 in just 20 Champions League appearances. He also scored 7 goals in three games against Seville, to whom he gave 4 goals in Borussia’ shirt.3 – Erling Haaland is the fourth player in UEFA Champions League history to score in his first appearance for three different teams (Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund and Man City), after Fernando Morientes, Javier Saviola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Introduction. pic.twitter.com/POz5iuDRCL— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 6, 2022 The home team is in deep crisis in La Liga and nobody expected that they could make a surprise, yet alone keep a clean sheet against Haaland and co. They have lost three of their four games so far this season, going down 3-0 at home to Barcelona on Saturday. Julen Lopetegui’s side were also beaten 2-1 at both Osasuna and Almería so a 4-0 loss to Manchester looked totally normal.Pep Guardiola had no problem fielding new signings Sergio Gomez and Manuel Akanji into the starting lineup due to injuries to Walker and John Stones. First half was typical City against…well anybody – possession. Seville struggled to get out of Manchester’s grasp and the first chance came after only 8 minutes, but Haaland flicked it wide of the post. De Bruyne and the Norwegian striker already have a great chemistry and it was visible during this match too. They combined for the first goal, when the Belgian midfielder crossed the ball near the goal area where Haaland was waiting to score – 1-0. City continued with the dominance and even forced Seville to switch to a back five. Since the goal, they haven’t had the ball for a long time, and had only one half-chance.But Pep Guardiola knew that 1-0 is not the safe score so the Citizens pushed really hard in the second half to get the second goal. De Bruyne had an unreal miss in the 50th minute, when he found himself all alone in front of the Seville keeper after a pass from Haaland, but took a really bad shot and Bono saved it. Haaland had a chance from 5 meters minutes later, but the ball went near the post. And then Foden had one of his great dribbling’s in the penalty area and was very precise in the bottom right corner 2-0. The same player again took the shot in the 67th minute, and the ball bounced straight to Haaland, who was at the perfect spot to tap it in for 3-0, before Ruben Dias scored the fourth goal deep in injury time.UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – MATCHDAY 1Tuesday Dinamo Zagreb – Chelsea 1-0 (1-0)/Orsic 13/Dortmund – Copenhagen 3-0 (2-0)/Reus 35, Guerreiro 42, Bellingham 83/Salzburg – Milan 1-1 (1-0)/Saelemaekers 40 – Okafor 28/Celtic – Real Madrid 0-3 (0-0)/Junior 56, Modric 60, Hazard 77/RB Leipzig – Shakhtar 1-4 (0-1)/Simakan 57 – Shved 16, 58, Mydruk 76, Traore 85/Sevilla – Man City 0-4 (0-1)/Haaland 20, 67, Foden 58, Dias 90+2/Benfica – Maccabi Haifa 2-0 (0-0)/Silva 49, Grimaldo 54/PSG – Juventus 2-1 (2-0)/Mbappe 5,22 – McKennie 53/Wednesday 19.45: (1.50) Ajax (4.60) Rangers (7.00)19.45: (2.25) Eintr.Frankfurt (3.50) Sporting (3.35)22.00: (3.80) Napoli (3.60) Liverpool (2.05)22.00: (1.85) Atl.Madrid (3.50) Porto (5.00)22.00: (3.40) Club Brugge (3.60) Leverkusen (2.20)22.00: (1.07) Barcelona (15.0) Plzen (35.0)22.00: (4.10) Inter (3.80) Bayern (1.92)22.00: (1.53) Tottenham (4.30) Olympique Marseille (7.00)***odds are subject to change
