Will Erling Haaland be the greatest goalscorer in history? Norway World Cup star chasing Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi

Two years on from Charli XCX capturing the zeitgeist, North America is having a Braut summer.

Haalandmania is sweeping the 2026 World Cup. Norway have dispatched Brazil and are into a blockbuster quarterfinal against England. The man at the centre of it all, Erling Haaland, is having a ball.

The 25-year-old Manchester City striker has seven goals at this World Cup, including a third brace in four appearances to sink five-time champions Brazil last time out and secure a first-ever quarterfinal place for Norway.

After the match, Haaland led Norway's on-field celebrations, beating a drum to conduct his teammates and the Scandinavian nation's supporters at Meadowlands in their Viking Row.

In the previous round, when he coolly converted a late winner against the Ivory Coast in Dallas, Haaland left the pitch wearing a novelty Viking helmet given to him by a fan. Those picture-book moments, alongside his pre-match joshing with child mascots, add to the impression of a larger-than-life figure having the time of his life.

He's an irreverent presence across social media — Haaland's 40.7 million Instagram followers have swollen to 57.7 million and counting during the tournament, and the three instalments of his World Cup Vlog on his official YouTube channel over the past two weeks have garnered over 16 million views combined.

On and off the field, Haaland seems to have made more immediate sense to the wider American sporting public than any previous soccer superstars. Even Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi — two of the greatest to ever do it, who are signing off their World Cup careers this month — experienced something of a slow burn in the U.S.

Haaland, a fluent English speaker, is that guy, while also coming across as one of the guys at a time when soccer's popularity has never been higher in the nation where all eight of the World Cup's concluding matches will take place.

None of this would be happening without Haaland being flush in soccer's main currency: goals. He scores lots of them. Relentlessly. Over and over, often looking like the biggest and best kid in the playground in the process.

Indeed, if Haaland is able to continue scoring at his phenomenal rate and achieve something like the longevity Messi and Ronaldo have enjoyed, he will overhaul them and every other great goalscorer in soccer history.

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Will Erling Haaland be the greatest goalscorer in history?

Across his senior club and international career, Haaland has a remarkable 349 goals in 403 appearances. The time he scored nine goals in one match as Norway beat Honduras 12-0 at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2019 does not count in this tally, as that was youth football. Still, it's worth noting he's been terrorising centre-backs for some time.

It means Haaland comes in well below Ronaldo and Messi, who have 976 and 919 respectively, placing them as one and two in soccer history when it comes to pure goal-getting. 

The main thing Haaland has on his side is time. Ronaldo and Messi have made 1,330 and 1,161 career appearances, respectively. When you break down the trio's records in terms of goals per minute, Haaland has a clear edge.

Haaland, Messi, and Ronaldo all-time career stats for club and country

If Haaland continues at his current rate, he will surpass both of the two G.O.A.T.s listed. There are, of course, a few caveats.

Firstly, Messi and Ronaldo's greatest joint miracle might be their incredible longevity. Portugal's past few tournaments have felt like a case of diminishing returns, but for Ronaldo to still be his country's first-choice striker at 41 is remarkable. Messi plundering eight goals in five appearances at 39 defies superlatives.

Haaland is evidently a player who takes his rest, recovery and physical conditioning incredibly seriously, from special glasses that filter light to optimise sleep to eating tomahawk steaks and drinking raw milk from a local Manchester farm (it's all on the YouTube diaries).

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The injury problems that hindered his time at Borussia Dortmund were a focus for City's medical team upon his arrival in 2022 and have largely subsided. His only notable absences at the Etihad Stadium have been due to a stress fracture suffered midway through the 2023/24 season and an ankle complaint that hindered him during the 2024/25 run-in. He has never appeared in fewer than 31 out of the 38 Premier League games in a season and featured in 35 (34 starts) last season.

This speaks of the model professional, but there is also a sense that Haaland can drag himself into battle when he is in less than optimal condition. Each of his seasons at City have featured a mid-winter slump when the goals have dried up in relative terms. As we've seen most recently in his interactions with his Norway teammates, Haaland is an unusually selfless superstar. This is admirable, but his body might pay a price down the line.

An advantage he has over Messi and Ronaldo is that this is who he's always been. Messi and Ronaldo began their career as versatile forwards who tended to operate from wide areas. Even after he played as a false nine for Pep Guardiola's Barcelona, Messi returned to the right wing as part of the famous Blaugrana forward line alongside Neymar and Luis Suarez.

Ronaldo has played largely as a central striker for the past decade, but at his peak, he was an all-action destroyer in incredible forward trios: first, in tandem with Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez at Manchester United, before going nuclear with Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema for company at Real Madrid.

Haaland, by contrast, has always been an out-and-out striker. He was before the growth spurt at 15 that spawned the giant the sporting world is currently enraptured by, and he will be whenever he kicks his last ball.

The making of Erling Haaland: Key figures in Norway hero's rise

Haaland's late physical development looks like a cheat code in retrospect. As a talented young forward of average size, often playing against boys a year older, Haaland had to learn how to be smart in terms of finding space and timing runs.

The result is a hulking physical specimen who plays with the guile of a small man. Along the way, multiple figures have helped to mould Haaland, from his first youth coaches to Norway national team boss Stale Solbakken.

Here, we look at three key influences on his sporting development.

Alfie Haaland

Haaland has navigated every step of his carefully plotted journey — from his hometown of Bryne to Norwegian top-flight side Molde, on to Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City — with the invaluable guidance of his father Alf-Inge (better known as Alfie) Haaland.

A combative and versatile defender and midfielder, Haaland Sr. moved to England from Bryne in 1993 to join Nottingham Forest. He went on to play for Leeds United, in the city Erling was born, and then, crucially, Manchester City, establishing a romantic link that the contemporary club — one far removed from the altogether more shambolic operation Alfie captained to relegation from the Premier League in 2000/01 — were able to pluck at effectively a couple of decades on.

The fact that Alfie was not a superstar player is key to Erling's make-up. If he were ever to suggest being a big-time Charlie, you sense pops would clearly have a stern word.

In April, when Arsenal defender Gabriel aimed a headbutt at Haaland during a Premier League game, the consensus was that if the City No. 9 had fallen to the floor, a red card would have been brandished to potentially change the complexion of the title race. But Haaland shot down this suggestion, stating plainly that his father brought him up differently.

"When it comes to social intelligence, I think it's sky high," said Norwegian sports journalist Jens Friberg. "You can see it from every club he's been at."

Haaland quickly became influential in a City dressing room featuring big characters. The sense is that Alfie's influence is key to this, and seeing how Haaland shapes up effectively as the leader of his club in the aftermath of Pep Guardiola's departure at City will be a fascinating aspect of his immediate post-World Cup career.

MORE: Why Pep Guardiola chose to end his historic Manchester City era 

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Speaking as an analyst on the BBC, former England and Manchester United great Wayne Rooney saw something familiar in Haaland's brilliant, drilled finish through Danilo's legs to seal Norway's victory over Brazil.

"There's a Norwegian specialist in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, that was his speciality: finishing through the legs. I learnt a lot from Ole doing that," Rooney said. "That's so difficult for a goalkeeper to save.

"I spent a lot of time with Ole when we were playing together. When you're going away from goal a little bit, as [Haaland] was, the defender has to put his leg out to block the shot, and it creates that gap through your legs. I used to try and do it a lot as well because you know, as a forward, that if you get it through the defender's legs, the keeper's not set."

ERLING HAALAND IS BRILLIANT TO BAG HIS BRACE AND PUT NORWAY UP 2-0 🇳🇴 pic.twitter.com/QA4bZE5DCe

In many respects, Haaland is following the path Solskjaer blazed as Manchester United's treble-winning hero: a down-to-earth, hard-working Norway standout who became a global name. He got to learn from the expertise Rooney tapped into at close quarters when Solskjaer signed a teenage Haaland for Molde in 2017.

Haaland credited the chance to work with Solskjaer as a reason not to look instantly abroad from Bryne as his father did. Along with training expert finishing technique, Solskjaer also helped to smooth out some of the young Haaland's emotional volatility, helping him to move to Europe's big leagues as the complete package.

Pep Guardiola

From the moment Haaland walked through the door at City, he and the manager were a curious fit. Pep Guardiola, the false-nining, Total Football disciple who demands high possession and high pressing from multi-faceted players. Give the choice, he'd field a team completely made up of midfielders. And there was Haaland, the biggest, most No. 9 of all No. 9s.

To witness Haaland in City's rondos, the high-speed one-touch passing warm-up drill, was to see a man out of his comfort zone. But one of the most common mistakes people make with Guardiola is to assume he is a man at the mercy of aesthetics. He is an evangelist for the style of Dutch master Johan Cruyff, but he is also a hard-bitten winner who demands complete commitment to the cause at all times. He always had them from day one with Haaland, a fellow football obsessive. A treble in their first season together obviously helped.

Like most managers, Guardiola is selective with his honesty in press conferences. But when he said publicly that City were a better team with Haaland in it, he repeated those sentiments in private. The admiration was mutual, and the conflict some anticipated — given Guardiola's uneasy alliance with the likes of Samuel Eto'o, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sergio Aguero — never materialized.

"A coach who never stopped teaching. It sounds crazy to say this, but you made greatness feel normal," Haaland posted on those heavily followed social media channels after Guardiola announced his City departure in May. "Even after hat-tricks, wins and trophies, there was always another lesson, another challenge and another level to reach.

"That mentality changed this club forever, and it changed me too. The honour of a lifetime to work with the best. Thank you for everything, boss."

You may have to squint to see the Guardiola influence on Haaland in a way you don't with Messi. But perhaps it was there in that wonderfully judged opening goal against Brazil, where he walked and sized up the space and analysed the whole picture before pouncing ruthlessly. Guardiola's favourite pupil would nod in quiet approval of a very different type of superstar forward, but one who looks ready to take up his mantle.