Man City's Erling Haaland thwarted by epic recovery run vs Bayern Munich

Erling Braut Haaland made a promising start to life as a Manchester City player this weekend.

Arriving at the club this summer to great fanfare despite a relatively ‘cheap’ transfer fee of £51 million, Haaland had the eyes of the world glued to him as he took to the pitch in sky blue for the very first time.

Football fans had already gotten a taste of Gabriel Jesus at Arsenal, Raheem Sterling at Chelsea and Raphinha at Barcelona amongst the pre-season madness, but Haaland’s debut was arguably the most hotly anticipated of all.

So, it told you everything you needed to know about the 22-year-old tipped to be a Ballon d’Or winner one day that he calmed all the nerves, pressure and expectations within just 12 minutes.

In what proved to be the winning strike for City against Bayern Munich at Lambeau Field, Haaland opened his account for the Citizens by sliding Jack Grealish’s cross into the back of the net from close range.

It might not have been a FIFA Puskas Award contender that would be splattered across every back page in the world, but boy was it an indicator of what Haaland can offer City as a more traditional number nine.

That being said, Haaland didn’t have everything his own way in Green Bay, which is perhaps to be expected considering how much his old Borussia Dortmund team used to struggle against Bayern at times.

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And we say that because the Norway international had a brilliant opportunity to double his money snuffed out by some heroic defending from Dayot Upamecano.

With 15 minutes on the clock, Haaland latched onto a misplaced Bayern header to start running clear of the Germans’ back line with a caught-off-guard Upamecano fully five yards behind the City