Changing of the guard? 

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Few would doubt that 2024 has been a good year for Erling Haaland. On top of adding a second Premier League title to his ever-growing trophy haul, the towering striker wrapped up another calendar year of international duty for Norway with an emphatic hat-trick in his nation’s 5-0 win over Kazakhstan in the Nations League. Not only did the result confirm the Scandinavian nation’s spot at the top of Group 3, but also meant that Haaland’s record for his national team over the course of 2024 stands at a remarkable 11 goals and one assist in just 10 games. 

Indeed, there’s little doubt that Haaland is wasting no time at all in establishing himself as the sport’s best goalscorer at international level, just as he has already done so at domestic level. In this current iteration of the Nations League, the Manchester City star leads the goalscoring charts with two more goals than the next best strikers. And since the competition was founded in 2018, no other player has bagged more goals than Haaland – who currently holds the record with 19 goals in 16 internationals. 

When we couple that with Haaland’s overall record in competitive games for Norway, it really underlines just how much of a phenomenon the big No.9 truly is in the modern era. Over the course of 30 appearances for his country, Haaland has bagged 30 goals and three assists. Which not only makes the striker stand out among all others in his current generation, but has also sparked debate as to whether the goal scorer could surpass even the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo at international level. And when we take a look at the international record of both players, it certainly makes for interesting reading. 

Comparing Haaland’s record to Ronaldo’s at international level

When we consider the international record of both players as they currently stand at the time of writing, he not only shows the remarkable record that Ronaldo has for Portugal but also hints at why Haaland may have his eyes set on catching his Portuguese rival. As we can see in the graphic above, Ronaldo has bagged a remarkable 116 goals in 163 competitive games for his country. When we add a further 34 assists in that time, it puts the player on 150 goal contributions in 163 games. Not only has the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star created goals at a remarkable rate for Portugal, but he’s done so while adding a degree of longevity to his game that few other players in the game could come close to matching. 

As previously noted, Haaland has only just broken the 30-game barrier for competitive games at international level. And in that time he’s picked up 33 goal contributions. Naturally, he’s some way off catching Ronaldo in terms of sheer number of games played for his nation, but when we consider the average goal contributions of both players per 90 minutes of football played, we can see that the Man City striker is already scoring or creating goals at a far higher rate than Ronaldo. While the Portuguese forward averaged around 0.76 goals per 90 minutes played for Portugal, Haaland is averaging 1.08 per 90. And even when we factor in assists, we can see that Haaland is still averaging around 21% more goal contributions per game for Norway than Ronaldo has done for Portugal over the course of his career. 

Fascinating enough, when we narrow in on the form of both players in their first 30 games for their national teams, we can clearly see where the differences may lie. As we can see in the graphic above, Ronaldo bagged an impressive 15 goals and 10 assists in his first 30 games for Portugal. Which naturally reflects the goal output of a player who began his career playing on the wing for club and country. The Portuguese star still notched up a very impressive record of 25 goal contributions in 30 games, but it still lags notably behind Haaland’s 33 goal contributions in his first 30 games for Norway. 

Will Haaland catch Ronaldo’s goal scoring record?

So we know that Haaland has enjoyed a far better start to his international goalscoring record than Ronaldo, but will he be able to catch the Portuguese star before the end of his career? Well, to do that Haaland will have to bag 117 international goals for his country in competitive games. And since he’s currently averaging 1.08 goals per 90 minutes for his country, it would suggest that Haaland would surpass Ronaldo’s record if he were to continue at this pace for another 81 international games. When we consider that Norway have played on average around eight competitive games per year since Haaland started playing for his nation’s senior team, that would suggest that it would roughly take another 10 years for Haaland to catch Ronaldo’s record. Which would require the forward to continue scoring goals for his national team well into his mid-30s, just as Ronaldo has done for Portugal. 

However, there are a few caveats to consider here. The first one is that while Haaland undoubtedly enjoys scoring goals for fun in World Cup qualifiers or Nations League clashes against lesser foes, the Man City star has yet to feature for his national team at a major tournament. Should Norway reach a World Cup or Euros in the coming years, that will add more games to Haaland’s fixture list and more opportunities to add to his goal tally in a shorter period of time, but it may also make it far harder for him to continue his current rate of scoring. After all, a hat-trick against Kazakhstan in the Nations League is far easier than scoring against Germany, Argentina or Spain in the knock-out rounds of a major competition. With 22 goals in 52 games at major tournaments for Portugal, Ronaldo has certainly proven that he could score goals at a remarkable rate with an incredible average of 1.06 goals per 90 minutes of tournament football. If Haaland really wants to catch Ronaldo’s record he’ll first have to help Norway qualify for their first major tournament since 2000. And once they’re there, he’ll have to make sure he can score goals just as readily as Ronaldo has done for Portugal over the course of the last 20 years.