Barcelona-linked striker equals a Lionel Messi UCL record

Sporting CP star and known Barcelona target Viktor Gyökeres on Tuesday joined club legend Lionel Messi in an altogether exclusive club.

This came by way of his exploits en route to putting Manchester City to the sword.

Sporting, of course, have positioned themselves front and centre in the headlines across all of Europe over the last 24 hours.

This comes after the Portuguese giants shocked the masses, on their way to a 4-1 drubbing of Premier League champions Man City in the Champions League.

The aforementioned Viktor Gyökeres proved himself the star of the show, notching a brilliant hat-trick to keep alive what has been nothing short of a remarkable start to the campaign.

And, as alluded to above, in the process, the Swede joined an altogether exclusive club on the continent…

As revealed by statisticians StatMuse, Gyökeres is just the third player in history to net a Champions League hat-trick against Manchester City.

The only other two to have managed as much? Lionel Messi, and Christopher Nkunku.

Amid mounting links between the parties, such brilliance will certainly not have been lost on the part of the transfer team at the aforementioned Barcelona…

Conor Laird – GSFN