He resembles Thor and assumes the Lotus position like Shiva. Erling Braut Haaland is a god in his own right – one of goals – and his statistics are mythological. The Norwegian, indeed, ripples nets and rips up records relentlessly. Still only 25, he is on course to become the leading marksman in football history.
Achievements and attributes
Haaland exploded on to the scene like TikTok in the second half of the previous decade. He made his professional bow for Bryne as a 15-year-old, scored on Molde debut the following year, and hit 28 goals in 22 games in his only full season with Salzburg. Furthermore, Haaland implausibly netted nine times in Norway’s 12-0 win over Honduras in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Poland 2019™.
The rampage continued in Germany, with the 1.95m striker helping Borussia Dortmund destroy Leipzig in the DFB-Pokal final and registered 86 goals in 89 outings overall. Haaland then propelled Manchester City to their maiden UEFA Champions League crown – he earned a second top scorer award in the competition in the process – and two Premier League titles in his first three seasons.
The goals have also flowed thunderously for Haaland at senior international level. Sixteen in only eight games got Norway to the FIFA World Cup 2026™, and booked the most mouth-watering shootout of the first phase between Haaland and Kylian Mbappe.
Tributes
“It’s like playing with Messi or Cristiano [in the team]. His influence is enormous. He takes the team to another level. Messi and Cristiano have done it for 15 years. Haaland is at that level.”
Pep Guardiola
“He’s a phenomenon. He’s unbelievable [like] the Brazilian Ronaldo, with the power he used to have when he ran, the explosion off the mark. [Zidane] Zidane, the Brazilian Ronaldo, the Portuguese Ronaldo, he’s right up there. He’s sensational. He’s almost like four players in one.”
Gary Neville
“You think you’ve seen everything, but he just gets better and better. There’s nothing he can’t do. His statistics are unbelievable.”
Alexander Sorloth
“Haaland’s one of those players who gets the ball in the centre circle and runs through you. He could be the beast of all beasts.”
Noel Gallagher
“I think we’re watching the greatest goalscorer to ever play in English football. I think of Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, Harry Kane and Ian Rush. I think what we’re witnessing now is something we’ve never seen before in our game. This is a club where the goalscorer beforehand was Sergio Aguero, one of the greatest we’ll ever see. Haaland is on a completely different level to Aguero. He’s the best.”
Jamie Carragher
Trivia
Haaland set a still-standing world record for a standing long jump by a five-year-old in 2006: 1.63 metres. His mother, Gry Marita Braut, was a Norwegian champion heptathlete. Erling also received a call-up from the Norwegian national handball team in his mid-teens.
Haaland grew up admiring Spaniard Michu, fellow Scandinavian Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Haaland was part of a rap group called the Flow Kingz with his former Norway U-17 team-mates Erik Botheim and Erik Tobias Sandberg. Their single Kygo jo has almost 15 million views on Youtube.
Haaland sung Three Little Birds by Bob Marley and the Wailers for his Borussia Dortmund initiation in 2020. It went down much better than Jude Bellingham performing the Ne-Yo track So Sick, which had his team-mates in fits of laughter. Marley was a huge football fan and famously partook in a six-a-side game in Rio de Janeiro, scoring in a 3-0 win alongside Brazilian musician Chico Buarque and Mexico 1970 winner Paulo Cezar Caju.
Stats
World Cup history
Almighty underdogs on their tournament debut in 1938, Norway took defending champions Italy to extra time before falling to Silvio Piola’s goal. The Nordic gladiators also punched above their weight in USA 1994 qualifying, topping a group including the Netherlands, England and Poland to return to the big stage following a 56-year hiatus. Henning Berg, Lars Bohinen, Oyvind Leonhardsen and Co thrived stateside, but cruelly fell on goals scored after finishing level with Mexico, Republic of Ireland and Italy on points and goal difference.
Four years later, at what proved their last World Cup, an exceptional Tore Andre Flo display inspired a stunning upset of Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Brazil that snuck Norway into the last 16, before Italy’s Christian Vieri stamped their return tickets to Oslo.
2026 hopes
Norway may be heading to their first World Cup of the 21st century, but there’s a crammed carriage of people championing them as dark horses. They dismantled Italy home and away in qualifying, won all eight of their matches, scored 37 goals and conceded only five.
If Olsen’s generation was golden, Stale Solbakken’s is 24-carat. Headlined by Haaland, it also includes Borussia Dortmund wingback Julian Ryerson, Fulham midfielder Sander Berge, Arsenal playmaker Martin Odegaard, 20-year-old Leipzig winger Antonio Nusa, and another two hulking strikers in Atletico Madrid’s Alexander Sorloth and Jorgen Strand Larsen of Crystal Palace.
The Landslaget landed in an extremely examining section, alongside reigning African champions Senegal and the mighty France, but, as Haaland put it, “Norway doesn’t fear any team.”
