The quiet giant: Haaland hits 300 while the world looks away

Despite Manchester City's underwhelming season and his own injury setbacks, Haaland continues to deliver milestones that remind the world of his immense talent. His latest came against Juventus, where he notched up his 300th career goal across club and country.

That figure stems from his debut in Norway's top flight with Molde and includes his remarkable contributions to the national team, where he has scored 42 goals in 43 matches—nearly a goal per game.

It's a rate he has consistently hovered around since his explosive rise in 2019. In total, Haaland has hit 300 goals in 354 appearances, averaging 0.85 goals per match. Measured per 90 minutes played, the figure sharpens to a staggering 1.01.

Breaking down his club career, the 24-year-old scored 20 goals for Molde, 29 for Salzburg, 86 for Borussia Dortmund, and 123 in a Manchester City shirt.

Of his 354 total appearances, he has found the net in 186 of them (52.5%), racking up 57 braces, 20 hat-tricks, three four-goal hauls, and two five-goal games. That means in 44% of the matches where he scored, he netted more than once.

The Norwegian still has time to add to this season's haul, despite some considering it below par. Yet with 33 goals already, his "off-year" would be a dream for most strikers.

Admittedly, he hasn’t hit the same astronomical level he reached in his debut season at City, when he bagged 52 goals in 53 games, shattering records across English football. Injuries, both his own and those of Kevin De Bruyne—his chief provider—have played a role. The Belgian, now bound for Napoli, assisted 20 of his goals over three seasons.

Given the forward's well-known ambition, the Leeds-born Norwegian has his sights firmly set on joining the pantheon of football's all-time top scorers.

At the summit of that list sit two all-time greats: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The Portuguese forward, now at 939 goals and freshly extended at Al-Nassr, is closing in on 1,000. Messi, meanwhile, sits at 866.

To reach such heights demands not only brilliance but also longevity and relentless consistency. For now, Haaland is on a trajectory that makes such numbers feasible, but football rarely unfolds in straight lines.

What is certain, however, is that Haaland's tally at 24 years, 11 months and six days (a total of 9,107 days) eclipses both Messi and Ronaldo at the same age.

Surprisingly, the current all-time top scorer, Ronaldo, had only 158 goals at that age—almost half of Haaland's current total—spread across 405 matches (0.39 goals per game). It was January 2010, and he had just joined Real Madrid, where he would go on to rewrite the club's scoring history, netting 450 goals in 438 matches (1.03 goals per game). He hasn't failed to hit the 20-goal mark in a single season since 2005/06.

Messi, on the other hand, was much closer to Haaland's numbers. On 30 May 2012, when he too had lived 9,107 days, he had scored 275 goals in 397 matches (0.69 goals per game) for Barcelona and Argentina.

That week, he had just scored in the Copa del Rey final against Athletic Club, en route to setting a new record for most goals in a calendar year with 91. He had already netted 46 by that point—43 of them for Barcelona.

The comparison also extends to other modern greats. Lewandowski, now among the all-time top ten scorers with 695 goals and still going, had scored 133 in 277 appearances by the time he reached Haaland's current age, fresh from a Champions League final with Dortmund.

Suarez, meanwhile, had scored 176 in 317 games by late 2011, when he was dazzling for Liverpool.

Right now, Haaland tops them all. He may not be the headline every week, but he remains a force. Whether he can ultimately stand shoulder to shoulder with these legends will depend on his ability to elevate his game through the latter half of his twenties—a challenge that starts imminently, as the Norwegian turns 25 on 21 July.