Erling Haaland has spent the 2022/23 season proving any and all doubters he has wrong.
Heading into the second leg of Manchester City’s Champions League quarter-final second leg tie with Bayern Munich, he’d scored 47 goals in 40 games across all competitions.
Yes, 47 goals in 40 games.
That goalscoring rate has led many to believe that Haaland isn’t actually human, rather some kind of cyborg from the future programmed into the Manchester City mainframe to relentlessly score goals and pulverise opponents into submission.
He’s scored hat-tricks for fun, made defenders look stupid, and just had a generally swell time of things.
So when City were awarded a rather dubious penalty against Bayern, for a rather sketchy (but factually correct) handball call against Dayot Upamecano, Haaland was fully expected to score from the spot.
He’d done so on every other occasion, so why wouldn’t he this time?
Made to wait by the referee and then by Leon Goretzka, who took it upon himself to clear some debris from Yann Sommer’s line of sight, Haaland looked cool as a cucumber. Ready to attack the task at hand and seal City’s place in the last four once and for all.
Except the mainframe malfunctioned this time and Haaland’s scoring programme went haywire.
The result? His penalty went sailing over Sommer’s crossbar (the first time he’d missed from 12 yards since April 2021, his last 16 attempts).
The reaction on Twitter? Disbelief.
Don’t believe us? Read on…
HAALAND’S PENALTY
THE REACTION
Video: We finally have something to laugh at Haaland for
