Erling Haaland put in a match-winning performance against Dortmund and he says his motivation came from a certain Frenchman.
Borussia Dortmund sensation Erling Haaland says Mbappe’s performance against Barcelona challenged him to do something similar against Sevilla.
Dortmund came from behind to beat the hosts 3-2 in the first leg of the last-16 tie. Sevilla forward Suso opened the scoring early in the game before Mahmoud Dahoud equalized for the visitors. There was still time for a ‘goal-machine’ to follow up with a double before half-time.
Haaland now has eight goals from five matches in the Champions League this season, and 25 from 24 appearances in all competitions. The 20-year-old made history by becoming the first player to score 17 goals in his first 13 appearances in the competition.
In a similar vein, Mbappe also made history with a brilliant hat-trick against Barcelona on Tuesday, becoming only the third player to do so. As it stands, only the PSG star has scored more goals than the Dortmund star before turning 21.
The debate for the best young talent in the world continues to linger on, and Haaland admitted that fellow young superstar Mbappe gave him the motivation to fire his team to victory.
He said as quoted by ESPN: “I saw Mbappe yesterday and he scored some nice goals and I got a free boost from him! So yeah, it was nice.”
Dortmund have struggled in the Bundesliga of late and Haaland hopes the win against Sevilla can help them build momentum in the league.
“I felt like, I don’t know if you can say it’s down to motivation or passion or whatever, but we were more online today. It was good,” he added.
“It was not good to let in two goals, but it is good to score three away goals and take them with us.
“We have to recover quickly now. We’ve got a big game ahead this weekend. We have to take this positive mindset into that game because we have to win that one as well, but it was really nice to win tonight in Spain.”
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