Despite Erling Haaland successfully launching Norway’s 2026 World Cup campaign with a brace against Iraq, the striker still believes Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé are ahead of him in the race to be regarded as football’s best goalscorer.
After Norway’s 4-1 win, coach Stale Solbakken coined Erling Haaland as the “best goalscorer in the world.”
In the mixed zone post-game, Haaland was asked if he agreed with the statement.
“[Best] goalscorer? I would say I’m up there. I don’t think I scored the most goals this season, so statistically no,” Haaland explained.
In total, Haaland has scored a total of 37 goals across the 2025-2026 season — 27 in the Premier League and eight in the Champions League for Manchester City, not forgetting his recent two at the World Cup.
He added: “Harry Kane and [Kylian] Mbappé scored more goals than me and that’s the reality.”
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Mbappé is currently ahead of Haaland’s 38 goals by a mere four, with 25 goals scored in LaLiga and 15 in the Champions League for Real Madrid as well as his additional 2 in the World Cup.
He headed the La Liga goalscoring charts in 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 as well as receiving Champions League top scorer this year.
Kane beat Haaland’s goal count by a whopping 27, with 51 goals across 51 matches.
Thirty-six of those goals were scored across 31 appearances in the Bundesliga.
Unsurprisingly, this performance was followed by the award for league’s top scorer for the third consecutive year. The remainder of his goals were scored in the Champions League, and to top it off, this secured Kane with a record-breaking domestic campaign for Bayern Munich.
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In a recent presser ahead of England‘s World Cup opener against Croatia, he had his own thoughts to add on his performance this season.
“Yeah I’d say from a personal point of view it was the best season I’ve ever had from a factual point of view of scoring a lot more goals than what I have in any other previous season which is obviously pleasing,” Kane said.
He added: “I think also just physically and mentally the way the season ended for me was obviously great. I took that into the prep cap with the boys and I know you need a lot of things to go your way at the right time and I feel it has.”
Patrick Berg backed his international teammate Haaland as the world’s top striker.
“Of course, he’s [Haaland] the best striker in world football and you can see today the way he worked for us, not just with the ball but also without the ball was magnificent. I think he really made a great game today,” Berg said.
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Another one of Haaland’s teammates — Sander Berge — said he played like “an animal.”
Regardless of the best goalscorer claims, Haaland is more than happy to be able to fulfil his World Cup dream.
This is Haaland’s first major international tournament of his career and Norway’s first appearance at the World Cup for 28 years.
Norway play their next game in the World Cup against Senegal on Tuesday in the MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, at 1 a.m. (BST).
