Erling Haaland is the best striker in the history of football

True, so far only in the future

We create the perfect scorer in a football simulator: high speed, explosive acceleration, accurate cannon strike, excellent jumping ability and taller height – you can punch goals in batches from any position. Suddenly it turns out Erling Haaland.

If you give the Norwegian more technique and dribbling, you get the ultimate player, whom Messi will look like an alien.

Erling is 22 years old and has already scored 182 professional goals.

(By the way, the hope of Russian football, Alexander Kokorin, will only have 110 goals scored in his career)

We understand why Haaland is head and shoulders above Mbappe and Lewandowski, and also slightly superior to Ronaldo

Space performance

In his short career, Haaland only failed two seasons: in the 2016 campaign he scored zero goals in 16 games for Brunet, and in 2017 he scored two goals in 14 matches for Molde.

Of course, I’m being ironic – it’s unlikely that anyone in the Norwegian championship was expecting goalscoring achievements from seventeen-year-old Erling.

But then he was unstoppable: over the past five years, the striker has 154 goals in 162 matches at club level and another 20 goals in 21 games for Norway.

And what are the competitors up to?

Kylian Mbappe

Kilian is the main antagonist of Haaland. He is a little older than the Norwegian, so let’s take the statistics from the 2016/17 season, when Mbappe shot for Monaco.

We get 216 goals in 281 games at the club level with a total lack of competition in Ligue 1. In the national team, everything is also not so bright – 31 goals in 61 meetings, but the title of world champion more than compensates for poor performance.

Robert Lewandowski

It’s hard to avoid comparisons between Erling and Robert, especially given their recent rivalry in the Bundesliga and the performances of both at Borussia Dortmund. For comparison, let’s take the period of stay of both players in the camp of “bumblebees”.

In three seasons in black and yellow, Haaland scored 86 goals in 89 games in all competitions. And this is provided that he ended up at Signal Iduna Park at the age of 19.

Let’s not count Robert’s first failed campaign and write it off as an adaptation. In this case, over the same three years in Dortmund, the Pole hit the opponent’s goal 94 times in 144 matches.

Not bad, but at that time Lewandowski was already 23 years old. On the other hand, it was he who brought the “bumblebees” to the Champions League final – Erling cannot boast of such an achievement.

Ronaldo

Most often, in terms of performance, Haaland is compared to Ronaldo. “Phenomenon” is the only player with whom the Norwegian will have to compete for the title of the best striker in history.

In the first five years of his career, Ronaldo has 170 goals in 180 games, and in teams of a similar level – Cruzeiro, PSV and Barcelona can be compared with Salzburg, Dortmund and City.

Here, the statistics are even on the side of the Brazilian: he did not need time to adapt to adult football – he immediately tore apart the Brazilian championship, simultaneously becoming the world champion at the age of 18. Erling never dreamed of such a thing.

Unfortunately, injuries did not allow Ronaldo to make the existence of this article meaningless.

Weak team is a solid advantage

Yes, Haaland will never take the World Cup in his life, but a weak team in modern football is more of an advantage than a disadvantage.

Gianni Infantino comes up with wild initiatives to hold the World Cup every three years. The Champions League will already turn into a circus from the 2024/25 season with eight matches in the first half of the season. The League of Nations, the endless qualifying matches against Andorran and Liechtenstein-level national teams – all this kills footballers.

Today, if a player has a strong national team, then at least twice in a four-year cycle he is left without a summer vacation. Yes, medicine has advanced far, but the health of the players still suffers from such a schedule.

Football officials have bet on financial success and have forgotten about the interests of those who bring in the money.

Norway’s golden generation

Norwegian football is going through golden times. Odegaard, Hauge, Estigor, Berge are players of the level of the English Premier League. The composition of the Norwegian national team resembles Denmark in 1994.

Moreover, if Holann manages to take the Euro with not the strongest team, then he will be credited with the main merit in taking the trophy. But any failure to the attacker will be forgiven, writing off the failure on too weak partners.

As a result, Erling is in a win-win position: he will rest in the summer or get a chance to prove himself at the international level.

Why Haaland will overtake Ronaldo in fans’ memory

The reason is simple – everything new is remembered much better. Few people regularly replay Ronaldo’s goals at the 2002 World Cup in their heads, but we hear about Erling’s goalscoring exploits literally every week.

Already this season, the Norwegian will certainly set a new record for performance in a season in the English Premier League. And there is every chance that he will beat the achievement of Andrew Cole and Alan Shearer by more than 15 goals.

If Haaland continues in the same spirit, then by the age of 30 he will approach the mark of 700-800 career goals. At this pace, close to 1,000 balls, which is almost twice as high as Phenomenon.

Along the way, Erling may hit an insurmountable bar of 91 goals in a calendar year, especially if the Norwegian moves from the Premier League to a weaker championship.

The main thing is medicine and football longevity

Goals alone are not enough to get into the history – you need trophies. So far, Erling has only a golden double with Salzburg and a German Cup with Borussia. On the other hand, if he continues to hit goals with the same intensity, the titles will come by themselves.

Unlike Mbappe, speed is not Haaland’s forte. In terms of texture and style of play, the Norwegian is closest to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and even at 39 he could score an average of a goal per game for Milan without straining.

If health does not fail the Norwegian, then in 15 years we will enjoy his bombarding exploits. Thanks to modern medicine, this is more than possible.

Ronaldo will forever be remembered as a phenomenon who was killed by injuries. Holanna is unlikely to be remembered as a player who creates magic on the field – the title of the best scorer in the history of football will be enough for him.