Ajax has secured the group win in the Champions League on Wednesday evening. The team of coach Erik ten Hag bent a 1-0 deficit during a visit to Besiktas by two hits from Sébastien Haller: 1-2. The attacker thus prevented Noussair Mazraoui, who caused a penalty in the first half, from becoming the schlemiel. The fact that Ajax had a memorable evening is once again apparent from the statistics of statistics agency opta.
Haller, who started against Besiktas on the bench and was brought in halfway the game for the disappointing Mohamed Daramy, can call himself top scorer of this Champions League season after Wednesday, together with Robert Lewandowski with nine goals. Never before has a player in the Champions League managed to score nine times in his first five games. In addition, only three players have scored in the past in their first five matches in the multi-billion dollar game: Alessandro Del Piero (1995), Diego Costa (2014) and Erling Braut Haaland (2019).
Who else? ? Haller was brought in for Daramy in the second half and immediately scored the equalizer? The striker is on 8(!) Champions League goals this season ??#ZiggoSport #UCL #besaja pic.twitter.com/kC5bnhlGAz
— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) Nov 24, 2021
Haller now also has a special place in the history books of Ajax. Never before has a player scored more than nine times in the highest European club tournament. Only Jari Litmanen reached the same number in the 1995/96 season. It is very likely that Haller will shoot that record out of the books, as Ajax still has a group match due and is assured of participation in the next round. If he wants to go down in the books as the top scorer in a single season in all European competitions, he will have to pass Sören Lerby. In the 1979/80 season, the Dane scored ten goals in eight matches in the European Cup.
9 goals! ?? The man does not know how to stop and is now on a level with super striker Lewandowski ?? Unprecedented numbers??#ZiggoSport #UCL #besaja pic.twitter.com/AgehH2Y0Yc
— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) Nov 24, 2021
The fact that Ajax has achieved a historic performance is apparent from the fact that it has only happened once before that a Dutch team has won the first five European matches: Feyenoord in the 1971/72 season. The team from Amsterdam have now won all six European matches against Besiktas and will go on for a clear group stage in two weeks, in the home match against Sporting Portugal. In the history of the Champions League, only six clubs succeeded: AC Milan (1992/93), Paris Saint-Germain (1994/95), Spartak Moscow (1995/96), Barcelona (2002/03), Real Madrid (2011). /12 and 2014/15) and Bayern Munich (2019/20).