Haaland Double Sends City Past Porto as Maresca's Perfect Start Continues
Manchester City beat Porto in their opening Champions League fixture on 8 September 2026, with Erling Haaland scoring twice to secure all three points on a ground where City's European dreams have died before.
Haaland outjumped Jakub Kiwior to head City into the lead — the kind of brutal, simple finish that has made him one of the tournament's most feared strikers. He added a second to complete the double, taking the game away from a Porto side who arrived in fine form: five wins from five in Portugal's Primeira Liga, where they are the reigning champions (Reuters). The match was refereed by Szymon Marciniak (The Guardian).
The venue carried its own history. City lost the 2021 Champions League final at this same Porto stadium, and had lost six of their past nine away Champions League games heading into the night. Beating Porto on the road, then, was not just a result — it was a weight lifted.
Enzo Maresca, Pep Guardiola's successor in the City dugout, now has four wins from four to open the season. His team selection at Porto showed a manager willing to shake things up: Elliot Anderson was stood down, and 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi was handed a full debut in midfield alongside Enzo Fernandez. The attacking quartet behind Haaland — Phil Foden, Rayan Cherki, Antoine Semenyo — gave the forward plenty to feed off.
Haaland's relationship with this competition is already the stuff of highlight reels. He scored five in a single Champions League knockout match against RB Leipzig in 2023, a 7-0 demolition that remains one of the great individual performances in the tournament's modern era (UEFA). He has topped the Champions League scoring charts outright, finishing ahead of Mohamed Salah and the rest.
For Maresca, the challenge now is to keep the momentum through a punishing run. City face Paris Saint-Germain on Champions League matchday two, then travel across town to face Manchester United in a Sunday derby. Four wins, twelve goals' worth of Haaland menace, and a young midfielder trusted on a night that once haunted this club — it is, so far, exactly the start the new manager would have drawn up.
