How Haaland compares to Messi, Ronaldo & the modern greats at 22

The more goals Erling Haaland scores for Manchester City, the more ludicrous the praise becomes, but the Norwegian forward has been nothing short of phenomenal since making the move from Borussia Dortmund to the Premier League in the summer.

Pep Guardiola has warned that City's star striker, Haaland, is just getting started. Haaland has scored 17 goals in 11 games for City.

With 152 goals for his club team and 21 for his country, Haaland, at just 22 years old, is well on his way to becoming one of the greatest scorers of all time.

But how does he currently stack up against some of the game's all-time greats? In this analysis, The Business Standard (TBS) takes a look.

Lionel Messi

Guardiola always names Messi as the greatest player he coached.

After Haaland's Premier League debut, he said, "He can be a better player than Messi if he wants to." "He likes football, I've never seen a 21- or 22-year-old player - Messi was advanced - but the rest are never finished and can always improve.

The Argentine did lack Haaland's goalscoring prowess at the same age.

Messi scored 44 goals in 112 games for Barcelona as a winger and helped win three La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues.

At that age, he exploded as a goalscorer, scoring 628 goals in his next 666 matches for FC Barcelona. By 23, he had won the Ballon d'Or.

Cristiano Ronaldo

At the age of 22, Ronaldo was the youngest player to ever be nominated for the Ballon d'Or, and like Messi, he was only one season away from winning it. However, unlike Messi, he had already finished second in the race for the award, this time to Kaka.

His 50th career goal came shortly before his 22nd birthday in April, while the first of his 50 career hat-tricks took another six months.

In some ways, Ronaldo's career was similar to Haaland's, as he also decided that moving to Manchester was the best way to become a global superstar.

Kylian Mbappe

Similarly to how Messi and Ronaldo dominated the spotlight for the past decade or more, Haaland and Mbappe are poised to do the same for the next decade.

The rivalry has already begun after the PSG forward made fun of Haaland's 'zen' celebration after beating Borussia Dortmund in the 2020 Champions League.

Mbappe is three years older than Haaland, but he won the Golden Boy after a stellar 2017 season with Monaco, PSG, and France.

He leads Haaland by one goal in terms of total club goals, with 208 in 286 games played, for an average of 0.73 goals per game.

Mbappe has nine fewer goals than Haaland, despite 23 more appearances.

Karim Benzema

Benzema is favoured to win the Ballon d'Or in the coming weeks, and while that doesn't necessarily make him the best striker in the world, it does increase the likelihood that he deserves to be crowned as such.

He has always been a reliable performer, but his stardom has only risen in recent years, largely as a result of his emergence from Ronaldo's shadow.

After scoring 66 goals in 148 games for Lyon when he was just 21 years old, he was closely watched by the best clubs in Europe. Real Madrid eventually signed him in 2009, beating out Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United.

But he could only score nine goals in his debut season at Santiago Bernabeu.

The 44 goals he scored this past season at age 34 were easily the most of his career.

Alan Shearer

Even though Shearer's 260 Premier League goals seem unbreakable, Haaland could potentially challenge it if he were to go injury-free for more than a decade.

Shearer has said, "I think he'll have a chance if he does stick around and does stay fit." However, Harry Kane may have something to say about that, since he may have already broken it by that time.

With the Premier League having begun only two days before Shearer's 22nd birthday, the challenge is on even ground despite Haaland's upbringing in Norway, Austria, and Germany.

It may be too soon to make direct comparisons, but through their first seven games, Haaland has an 11-7 goal advantage. The record has stood for 16 years; he needs just 250 more to break it.

Sergio Aguero

Haaland has easily passed his father Alfie's record of three goals for City, but he has a long way to go before he reaches Aguero's all-time club record of 260.

The fact that the Argentine was still at Atletico Madrid and a season away from moving to the Etihad at age 22 should give some solace to the lifelong City fan.

Haaland has already scored 14 goals in less than two months, putting him on pace to break Aguero's record if he continues to play for another season and a half.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

At 22, Zlatan joined Ajax for a club record £7 million as a relatively unknown striker with a troublemaker reputation from Malmo.

During his four years in the Netherlands, he drew comparisons to Dutch legend Marco van Basten, leading to a move to Juventus.

At 22, he had 48 goals in 110 appearances, but his real impact came at AC Milan and PSG.

Haaland may share Ibrahimovic's unwavering confidence, and if he can match his endurance, he'll score goals.