Erling Haaland’s last double scored a new record in the Borussia Dortmund forward’s short career. The Norwegian became the fastest player of this century to reach 25 goals in one of the five major leagues, according to data from Transfermarkt. Specifically, he achieved it in his 25th game with the German team, which he arrived just a year ago from Red Bull Salzburg.
Erling Haaland thus surpassed illustrious footballers and world stars who needed more matches to score 25 goals in the 21st century such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Kevin Phillips, Neymar or Cristiano Ronaldo, among many others. The Swede was the fastest so far: he had scored 25 goals in 26 games for PSG and was even with Sunderland’s Englishman Kevin Phillips, although the latter was younger than Ibrahimovic when he did.
With 25 goals in 27 games, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo appear: the Brazilian in his first campaign with PSG (2018-19) and the Portuguese in his debut with Real Madrid, in the 2009-10 season.
Haaland, Cristiano: fastest players to score 25 goals
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40 Lucas Barrios – Dortmund – 10/11 – 25 goals in 44 games
One of the players who appears twice in the Transfermarkt ranking of the fastest to achieve 25 goals in the last 20 years is Cristiano Ronaldo. In addition to Real Madrid, the one from Madeira also reached the aforementioned figure in his second year with Juventus. He specified 38 games in 2019-20. The other who repeats is the Colombian Radamel Falcao, who achieved it with both Atlético de Madrid and AS Monaco.
Messi and Lewandowski, far from the top positions
For his part, Argentine star Lionel Messi is not among the top 40 of this classification. The Barcelona player had to play 54 games to score 25 goals, although at that time he was two months younger than Haaland is now. A case similar to that of Robert Lewandowski who required 60 commitments with Dortmund to achieve it, which places him in the 131st position.
Fernando Torres (10th) and Diego Costa (32nd) are the two Spaniards in the top 40. Likewise, other professionals who scored 25 goals for Spanish teams were Catanha at Celta and Málaga CF (36 games), Ruud van Nistelrooy at Real Madrid (36), Luis Suárez at FC Barcelona (37), Diego Forlán at Villareal CF (38), Júlio Baptista at Sevilla FC (39) or Gareth Bale at Real Madrid (43).
Finally, Latin American stars such as Sergio Agüero, Diego Milito, David Trézéguet, Lucas Barrios and Carlos Tevez appear in the ranking, among others.