Salzburg's Haaland Equals Champions League Record Held By Yakubu And 6 Players

Published: September 18, 2019

Red Bull Salzburg striker Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick on his Champions League debut against Racing Genk on Tuesday night.

In doing so, the Norway international became the eighth player to find the net three times (or more) on his Champions League debut, following in the footsteps of retired Super Eagles striker Yakubu Aiyegbeni and six other players.

Marco van Basten (AC Milan), Faustino Asprilla (Newcastle), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Vincenzo Iaquinta (Udinese), Grafite (Wolfsburg) and Yacine Brahimi (Porto) are the other players to have scored hat-tricks on their Champions League debuts.

Yakubu achieved the feat in Maccabi Haifa's 3-0 rout of Olympiakos on September 24, 2002, making him the third youngest player to score a hat-trick on his Champions League debut, aged 19 years, 10 months and 2 days.

Rooney is the youngest debut scorer of a Champions League hat-trick, aged 18 years and 340 days while Haaland is second in the list of players at 19 years and 58 days.

Yakubu is the only Nigerian player to have scored a hat-trick in the Champions League and scored four hat-tricks in total for three different clubs in the Premier League, Blackburn Rovers, Everton and Portsmouth.

Against Olympiakos, the ex-Super Eagles striker scored a hat-trick in the space of 59 minutes, with the first goal arriving in the 27th minute.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel

Photo Credit : starsixes.com