Enzo Maresca will take the three points and say all the right things about a tough away trip, and he'd be right to. Winning at the Estádio do Dragão on the opening matchday of the new league-phase format, in his first Champions League game in charge of Manchester City, looks good on a résumé. But anyone who watched the ninety-plus minutes knows Maresca's tactical plan wasn't the story. Erling Haaland refusing to let a wasteful first half define the night was.
For long stretches before halftime, City looked like a team still figuring out who it is under a new coach. Haaland had two good chances saved by Diogo Costa and headed another glorious opportunity over the bar, the kind of miss-fest that would have every pundit in Europe questioning City's finishing if it hadn't turned out fine in the end. Antoine Semenyo and Phil Foden combined for the kind of crisp buildup City fans are used to, but it kept dying at the byline or in Costa's gloves. This was a City side that needed its center forward to bail it out, not one steamrolling an overmatched Porto.
He did, twice. Haaland's headed opener early in the second half broke Porto's resistance, and the stoppage-time finish that made it 2-0 was the kind of composed, almost bored piece of finishing that separates him from every other striker at this level. By Opta's count, that brace pushed his career Champions League goal tally into rare company, among the highest ever scored in the competition. That's not really up for debate. Whether City should feel good about how the game was actually played is a different question.
This was a result that flattered the performance. Maresca inherited a City side that spent a decade being told exactly what to do by Pep Guardiola, and one match away from home isn't enough to know whether his own ideas have taken hold. The buildup play had real quality at times, especially through Foden and Semenyo, but City spent too much of the first half hunting for a breakthrough that should have come easier against a Porto side playing at home in a hostile stadium. If Haaland has an off night at some point this season, and even the best strikers do, City's process is going to get a far harsher review than it's getting today.
None of that should take anything away from Haaland. He missed three good chances and still finished with a brace that decided the game, exactly the profile of a striker good teams build entire systems around. The question hanging over Manchester City after one matchday of this new-look Champions League isn't whether their forward is elite. It's whether the rest of the team can create for him consistently enough that his misses stop mattering. On this evidence, City is still leaning on one player to paper over a system still being built.
