Thanks to his goal against the Bundesliga side, the Ivorian star equalled the feat only achieved by the Chelsea legend
Sebastien Haller’s goal for Ajax in Tuesday’s Champions League 4-0 triumph over Borussia Dortmund means that the Cote d’Ivoire international has matched Didier Drogba’s record that has stood for 18 years.
In netting against the Bundesliga giants, the 27-year-old became only the second African player to score in his first three appearances in the tournament.
According to Opta, Chelsea legend Drogba was the first African to achieve this feat in 2003.
Former West Ham United man Haller began his scoring run with four goals in the Dutch side’s 5-1 obliteration of Sporting CP.
That saw him become just the second player after Marco van Basten to score four goals on his maiden appearance in the competition’s history.
Overall, he joined Simone Inzaghi, Dado Prso, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Andriy Shevchenko, Lionel Messi, Bafetimbi Gomis, Mario Gomez, Robert Lewandowski, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo, Josip Ilicic and Olivier Giroud in the ranks of players who have scored at least four goals in a match in the European elite club tournament.
In his second game against Besiktas, he was on target in the 2-0 triumph to become the first player in Champions League history to score five goals in his first two appearances.
Thus, he matched the feat attained by Jari Litmanen (1994), Rafael van der Vaart (2002), Quincy Promes (2019) and Berghuis (2021) as the fifth player to score in his first two Champions League appearances for Ajax.
Apart from his goal against Dortmund, Haller provided two assists as Daley Blind and Anthony completed the defeat. As it stands, he boasts six goals and two assists in his three games so far for the Sons of the Gods.
Notwithstanding his commanding display, he was subbed off for Denmark international Mohamed Daramy with seven minutes left on the clock.
Ghana’s Mohammed Kudus and Morocco’s Zakaria Labyad were unused substitutes, whereas, Noussair Mazraoui was replaced by Devyne Rensch in the 83rd minute.
Thanks to this result, Erik ten Hag’s team maintained their perfect start in the 2021-22 tournament to lead Group C with nine points.
The Dutch side are guests of Dortmund in the reverse fixture billed for Westfalenstadion on November 3.