ERLING HAALAND has joined a select group of 14 to score a perfect ten-out-of-ten on L’Equipe’s ruthlessly tough player match ratings.
The unstoppable Manchester City striker earned the recognition by bagging his third hat-trick of the season in Sunday’s 6-3 demolition of Manchester United.
City’s Phil Foden also scored three on a remarkable day for the Citizens but it was the big Norwegian who stole the show again.
Haaland’s two predatory goals towards the end of the first-half effectively killed off their big rivals in the hotly-anticipated derby,
And either side of sealing his third home hat-trick on the spin with a brilliant snap-shot, he brilliantly set-up Foden for his second and third goals.
The 22-year-old’s all-round display was so good it persuaded the stingy critics at 76-year-old French daily sport newspaper L’Equipe to dish out one of their rare perfect ratings.
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They said he “flew over the derby by decorating his third hat-trick in a row at home” with “two perfect assists” as he becomes “more complete” in a “sparkling team”.
And Haaland is in fine company alongside 13 other players in a list which includes some of the who’s who of world football.
In November, Kylian Mbappe joined the prestigious list by scoring four and setting one up in France’s 8-0 rout of Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier.
Mbappe’s Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Neymar made the grade with four goals and two assists in a 8-0 dismissal of Dijon in 2018.
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Then Borussia Dortmund star Robert Lewandowski earned his place with a deadly four-goal salvo in a 4-1 Champions League semi-final win over Real Madrid in 2013.
Lionel Messi, unsurprisingly, is the only player to get a ten-out-ten twice for two outrageously good Champions League displays for Barcelona.
The first was for a four-goal haul in a 4-1 win over Arsenal in 2010, the second a five-goal display in a 7-1 victory against Bayer Leverkusen in 2012.
But they are all trailing in Haaland’s wake right now as his latest treble took his total to 17 goals in 11 matches since his summer switch from Dortmund, a total which includes 14 Prem goals in eight games.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
