What more can you say about Erling Haaland? The guy simply won’t stop scoring! He and young English star Jude Bellingham were on fire as Borussia Dortmund won at a packed Besiktas Park in Istanbul. Dortmund may have had a shaky start at the packed stadium in Turkey’s biggest city, but they survived an early onslaught from the hosts to take full control of the game.Besiktas, last season’s Super Lig champions recruited former Chelsea and Dortmund striker Michy Batshuayi and midfield playmaker Miralem Pjanic from Barcelona and were keen to kick off their campaign in style. It was the former BVB attacker Batshuayi who’s had a great early chance to give his team a lead, but was denied by a terrific save from Gregor Kobel.Dortmund got the lead 20 minutes into the game – and it was with their first effort of the evening when Thomas Meunier played a first-time pass to Jude Bellingham. The 18-year-old Englishman chested it down before firing through the legs of Ersin Destanoglu.Just before the break, Bellingham once again showed why many predict a bright future for the former Birmingham City youngster when he made the Turkish defence look silly before teeing up Erling Haaland to make it 2-0. The first-half injury time strike was Erling’s 21st goal in only his 17th Champions League appearance. He’s now got 66 goals in as many appearances for the Yellow-Blacks. Those are some astonishing numbers!The Black Eagles were solid in midfield but were unable to deal with Dortmund’s potent attacks. Their coach Sergen Yalcin sent them out with a desire to at least reduce the deficit in the second half, but they didn’t manage to turn their half-chances into anything substantial. The best opportunity they’ve had was a counter-attack in which Batshuayi rounded the goalkeeper Ersin Destanoglu, but couldn’t steady himself to slot into the net, allowing the custodian to recover and block the shot.The Germans used the ball wisely and wouldn’t be dragged into a frantic race on the pitch. They waited for their chance to put the game beyond doubt and maybe could have secured the third goal with 20 minutes to go, but Haaland failed to add to his tally and was shortly replaced by the young Ansgar Knauff.Besiktas managed an injury-time goal to try and force a dramatic ending to this game, but Francisco Montero’s firm header proved only a consolation for the Turkish club.This was a Jude and Erling show after all. We’re lucky to watch these boys blossom into top-class players in front of our eyes. Marco Rose and his exciting team will be fun to watch – that is for sure!
