In a very unusual gesture, Mohamed Ali Camara, Young Boys' Guinean centre-back, asked the best rival striker for the shirt at half-time of their match against Manchester City on Tuesday. “I'm a little surprised,” admitted Raphael Wicky, coach of the Swiss team. But nothing that happens around the figure of Erling Braut Haaland (Leeds, 2000) should be surprising now, with the Norwegian consolidated as the best scorer on planet Earth and, surely, in the entire Milky Way.
At the Ballon d'Or gala, recently held at the Chatelet theater in Paris, only the World Cup heroically won by Messi's Argentina stood in their way to the top. La Pulga added his eighth gold medal but Haaland has already climbed to second place in the box, even ahead of Mbappé, finalist in Qatar, it should not be forgotten.
Goals have always supported the Viking par excellence of world football, but his successful landing at Pep Guardiola's City has filled the only gap that was almost empty in his service record, that of titles. His first year in Manchester ended with a Premier League, a Champions League, an FA Cup and a European Super Cup, competitions in which he scored 52 goals in 53 appearances, more than enough merits to elevate the blond giant even further to the altars. make his election as the second best player in the world indisputable.
In his second season at the Etihad, the goalscorer's career continues to anticipate more success. At the moment, after 17 games, the Norwegian has 15 goals after the double scored on Tuesday against Young Boys, in a game in which he was a doubt until the end due to physical problems. But there is nothing that stops Haaland and, especially, in the Champions League, where he is carving out a career of absolute legend.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi are the undisputed dominators of the top continental competition but the Norwegian predator is breaking all their precocity records. Although the Portuguese's 141 goals and the Argentine's 129 are still far away, Haaland is approaching in sixth gear and at a record pace. He has already accumulated 39 goals in the Champions League (16 with City, 15 with Dortmund and 8 with Salzburg), a figure achieved after just 34 games. At his age – he is 23 years old – neither Messi nor Cristiano reached even half of his goals in the competition par excellence.
While he continues sprinting to catch up with those two beasts, Haaland is leaving other historical names behind. With 43 goals in European competitions (39 in the Champions League and 4 in the Europa League), he has already surpassed Mbappé, with 25 fewer games played, and has equaled Neymar, who will soon be nothing more than a tiny figure in the rearview mirror of the Viking of the century. XXI.
