Haaland needed far fewer games than Ronaldo and Messi to reach 33 UCL goals

Haaland's hunger for goals is insane and from another planet. The Manchester City striker is a goal machine and he proved it again on Tuesday when all the spotlight was on him on a big stage.

In the second leg of the Champions League round of 16, the former Borussia Dortmund man scored five goals to book his side a place in the quarter-finals. A first-half hat-trick that took him to 33 goals in his first 25 matches in the competition.

Figures never seen before, not even with world stars who have left their names in the history books. The Norwegian has needed far fewer games than legends of the competition and goalscorers such as Ronaldo, Messi and Benzema.

In fact, Van Nistelrooy needed 38 games to score 33 goals. Messi needed 52, Lewandowski and Mbappe 53, Benzema and Cavani 54, Inzaghi and Neymar 55 and Cristiano Ronaldo surprisingly 76.

We can also consider how many goals the five current top scorers in the Champions League had scored after 25 games. Raul Gonzalez had eleven, Benzema 13, Lewandowski 15, Messi 12 and Ronaldo had yet to score at that age.

Numbers that are truly out of this world and which place Haaland as the possible successor to the Portuguese star, who leads the way with 141 goals in 187 games. He is smashing records in his wake and nothing is going to stop him.