Two goals from Phil Foden and another from Erling Haaland helped City to victory in the Champions League. Check out the best facts and Opta data in our Man City vs Borussia Dortmund stats page.
Phil Foden produced the fireworks with two goals on Bonfire Night as Manchester City beat Borussia Dortmund 4-1 in the Champions League.
Erling Haaland’s obligatory goal against his former club meant City went in 2-0 up at half-time, before Foden added another after the break.
Waldemar Anton pulled a goal back for the Bundesliga side but they were largely second best to Pep Guardiola’s men, who produced some outstanding football at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday night and wrapped things up with a Rayan Cherki strike in stoppage time.
The victory moves Man City up to fourth in the Champions League table, while Dortmund drop to 14th at the halfway stage.
It was a fairly tentative start from City, but they only had to wait until the 22nd minute for a moment of class to break the deadlock, and to relative astonishment, it didn’t involve Haaland scoring.
Tijjani Reijnders found Foden in a pocket of space, allowing him to turn, run and shoot with unerring accuracy low to the right of Gregor Kobel and into the net from all of 25 yards.
It probably should have been 2-0 when Haaland bulldozed his way into the box and fed Nico O’Reilly on his own in the middle of the Dortmund penalty area, but the youngster was denied by Kobel.
Haaland decided he needed to do it himself, and so he did. Moments later, Jérémy Doku pulled a low ball across the box and the Norwegian smashed his shot from 10 yards out past Kobel with ferocity.
It made him the first player to score in five consecutive Champions League appearances for as many as three different teams (Red Bull Salzburg, Dortmund and City).
Reijnders was denied after his own hard shot from the edge of the box, while the first moment of threat from Dortmund didn’t come until the 39th minute when the lively Karim Adeyemi cut inside from the right and hit a shot that was well kept out by Gianluigi Donnarumma.
It was a bright start to the second half from City too, with Savinho forcing a save from Kobel in the opening minute.
It was Foden who struck next, though, with a very similar goal to his first one. Yet again it was Reijnders who played a pass inside to his teammate, who turned to face the goal and finished past Kobel to his right-hand side to record his 20th career goal in the Champions League.
Since the start of the 2023-24 season, Foden has scored 11 goals from outside the box for City in all competitions, the most of any player for a Premier League club in that time.
Serhou Guirassy had a quiet night for the visitors, but was denied well by Donnarumma just before being subbed off for Jobe Bellingham after the hour mark, while Adeyemi dragged an effort just wide soon after.
Niko Kovac’s side did get a goal back from a quickly taken free-kick, playing it to Julian Ryerson, and his low cross was side-footed in by Anton.
Ryerson had a chance to reduce the deficit to one when he ran onto a cross from Adeyemi but his volley went well over Donnarumma’s bar.
Guardiola made changes as he looked to rest players for their big Premier League clash with Liverpool at the weekend, which included bringing on Bernardo Silva to make his 100th UEFA Champions League appearance, the fourth Portuguese player to reach a century, after Cristiano Ronaldo (180), Pepe (120), and Luís Figo (103).
Cherki was one of those subs too, and he wrapped things up against a tiring Dortmund defence when he collected the ball following a City turnover, ran at the visitors and hit a shot from the edge of the box that deflected off Emre Can and in.
Our Opta match centre delivers you all the Man City vs Borussia Dortmund stats from their Champions League meeting at the Etihad Stadium.
The match centre below includes team and player stats, expected goals data, passing networks, an Opta chalkboard and more. It gives you everything you need to do your own match analysis.
Underneath the match centre you can find the official Opta stats on the game as well.
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