dpa
Berlin
Erling Haaland scored a brace as Manchester City continued their perfect start into the Champions League 5-0 over Copenhagen on Wednesday.
The Norwegian star bettered his tally to 19 goals from 12 games since arriving at the English champions in summer from Borussia Dortmund who won the other Group G game 4-1 at Sevilla.
Title holders Real Madrid joined City - as well as Bayern Munich, Napoli and Club Brugge - on maximum points by beating Shakhtar Donetsk 2-1.
The completion of matchday three also saw Lionel Messi score a wondergoal in Paris Saint-Germain’s 1-1 at Benfica who are an unprecedented 40th different team the Argentine icon has scored against in the elite event.
The 2021 winners Chelsea got a first win 3-0 against AC Milan, so did RB Leipzig 3-1 over Celtic and Juventus 3-1 against Maccabi Haifa, while Salzburg edged Dinamo Zagreb 1-0.
Haaland famously scored hat-tricks in the last three Premier League home games but was denied another one against Copenhagen when substituted at half-time.
He smashed the opener off Joao Concelo’s cross in the seventh minute and made it 2-0 in the 32nd on the rebound of Sergio Gomez’ attempt.
Gomez’ shot was deflected in by two defenders, with David Khocholava having the last touch, and a penalty from Riyad Mahrez and Julian Alvarez completed the rout.
“I am really impressed with the way we attacked. We played really good,” Guardiola said, adding on Haaland: “Haaland has played a lot of minutes and we were 3-0 up so he came off, it was a rest. He is not injured.”.
City forward told BT Sport: “The [Copenhagen] keeper said something to me as I was walking back.
He said ‘he’s not human!’ I said ‘you’re telling me?’ Hopefully he can carry on this form and take us to glory.” City are top of Group G three points above Dortmund who won at ailing Sevilla from Raphael Guerreiro, Jude Bellingham, Karim Adeyemi and Julian Brandt. Youssef En-Nesyri, who had earlier escaped a red card via a video review, netted for Sevilla.
Real seemed on course to a comfortable Group F win when Rodrygo fired into the bottom right corner in the 13th and Vinicius Junior chose the bottom left 15 minutes later.
Shakhtar responded from a artistic volley by Oleksandr Zubkov before half-time but the champions saw out the narrow win despite wasting several chances.
Real are five points clear of Shakhtar, with Leipzig another point back after finally winning.
Andre Silva set up Christopher Nkunku for the first and then netted himself in the 64th and 77th for victory, after Celtic had temporarily levelled from Jota. But Leipzig will be without goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi for months with a cruciate knee ligament tear sustained in the first half.
Chelsea and their new manager Graham Potter also tasted first success in Group E which is wide open.
Wesley Fofana opened the scoring in a 24th-minute goalmouth scramble, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang grabbed the second in the 56th and Reece James smashed into the roof of the net six minutes later from the right.
Salzburg’s earlier win against Zagreb from Noah Okafor’s penalty sees the unbeaten Austrians top, one point ahead of Chelsea and Milan, and two ahead of Zagreb.
Benfica and PSG entered their Group G topper with two wins each and it was the French champions who drew first blood when Messi curled into the top left corner in the 22nd in a slick move which also involved attacking partners Kylian Mbappe and Neymar.
Benfica levelled in the 42nd from an own goal by Danilo off Enzo Fernandez’ cross while Neymar’s overhead kick hit the top of the crossbar after the break and neither side found a winner.
Juventus trail the leaders by four points after winning against Haifa from a brace by Adrien Rabiot and Dusan Vlahovic. Dean David was on target for the visitors.
