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
Erling Haaland skies it from the spot 😨
A rare Haaland miss from twelve-yards as the Allianz Arena rejoices!#UCL pic.twitter.com/vLh3kFKFg2
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 19, 2023
THE REACTION
Haaland missed a pen… he is human pic.twitter.com/khMR16HCEV
— Casey Evans (@Casey_Evans_) April 19, 2023
They show Haaland’s face on the big screen after he misses (about two minutes later) and the entire Bayern crowd cheers.
— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) April 19, 2023
We finally have something to laugh at Haaland for pic.twitter.com/7kBjacHaxr
— 🏴 (@LJGLA_) April 19, 2023
Haaland that was atrocious 😭😭😭😭😭
— Mod (@CFCMod_) April 19, 2023
That’s such a strange penalty from Haaland, so unlike him to go for power rather than placement from the spot.
The only potential positive is that it’s like to rile him up, he’ll be an angry man with a right to wrong from here on out.
— Tom Young (@TomYoungSJ) April 19, 2023
Erling Haaland has missed a penalty for only the 3rd time in his career. He last missed from the spot 728 days ago against Union Berlin.
Pressure. 💥 pic.twitter.com/OQKlOvluip
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) April 19, 2023
Haaland skied the penalty while being 3-0 up meanwhile Benzema scored a panenka when the score was 2-4 in the first leg, never compare these two ever again
— 🇦🇱🇽🇰 (@Valv3rdeGOAT) April 19, 2023
Erling Haaland doing the right thing and putting it over the bar because of that ridiculous decision. What a guy! 👏🏾
— Kyle Walker (@kylewalker115) April 19, 2023
Why couldn’t Haaland save that penalty miss for the 2nd minute vs Arsenal when Holding wrestles Rodri to the floor 😭
— Ross (@SwedishRoss) April 19, 2023
Haaland can only do it in the farmers’ league, clearly
— Ronan Murphy (@swearimnotpaul) April 19, 2023
Erling Haaland with a rugby penalty 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
— ActorVist (@mashoodoZ) April 19, 2023
Credit: 90min.com
