Erling Haaland endures another poor performance, and Real Madrid legend tears him apart, saying, “I find him a very average player.”

At the Santiago Bernabeu, Manchester City and Real Madrid engaged in an entertaining 3-3 draw in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal. The championship holders will have the advantage when they play the 14-time champions at Etihad Stadium next week, but the tie is still very much alive.

The Cityzens’ goals came from Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, and Josko Gvardiol, but there were plenty of questions going into the second leg when Ruben Dias’ own goal was supported by Rodrygo and Federico Valverde’s goal.

In 2024, Erling Haaland has not performed to his full potential. This season, the Norwegian has already contributed 36 goals, but he has often failed to live up to his lofty expectations on the field. He only managed 20 touches against Madrid, but that is not out of the ordinary since he often doesn’t need a lot of the ball to get going.

However, it was clear that he struggled against Los Blancos as he gave up the ball seven times and was only able to attempt one shot on goal with a passing accuracy of only 67%.

Rafael van der Vaart, a former Real Madrid player, criticized Haaland harshly for his performance in the Champions League quarterfinal. Regarding his performance, the former Dutch international said that, in his opinion, the 23-year-old attacker is a very mediocre player when it comes to the ball.

“Erling Haaland was very bad,” he stated, as reported by Centregoals. He is pretty much worthless if he doesn’t score. He’s a really mediocre player on the ball, in my opinion.

In an effort to put more pressure on Arsenal and Liverpool, the reigning Premier League champions—who are still very much in the running for the championship—will play Luton Town.