Mbappé v Haaland v Kane
Monday Night SCOUTED explores the contrasting profiles of the most prolific players on the planet
For the first time in Erling Haaland’s lifetime, Norway are going to the men’s World Cup.
The man who had not yet been born when Norway reached the knockout stages for the first time in 1998 will, in 2026, be leading the line for his country as the all-time top-scorer. After back-to-back braces in a historic international break, Haaland has now scored 55 goals in 48 caps.
Of the 84 men with at least 50 goals at professional senior international level, only one has a better goals-per-game ratio than Haaland; Niels Poul Nielsen scored 52 goals in 38 caps for Denmark.
It would be very easy to argue, then, that Haaland will heading to the 2026 FIFA World Cup as the best goalscorer in the world. I have used ‘best goalscorer’ instead of ‘best striker’ intentionally. Not because I disagree, but because 'goalscorer' requires greater nuance. It sounds ridiculous to write, but not every striker should be evaluated on their goal output alone.
Kylian Mbappé and Harry Kane also scored a brace of their own during this break, taking their international tallies to 55 in 94 caps and 78 in 112 caps respectively. Combined, Mbappé, Kane and Haaland scored 8 goals and attempted 20 shots between them during this international break. Across league and UEFA Champions League competition this season, they have scored 55 goals in 45 games. They are the three most prolific goalscorers on the planet right now.
So, given how well the Rice v Caicedo discussion in the previous international break went down [we see you lot, only clicking when we wade into mainstream drama. Shame - ed] I’ve decided to do something similar. I am going to wander the same profiling path for these three players in attempt to translate their style as a striker into any particular metrics that we can then use to discover similar players. The not-so-groundbreaking theory is that despite all three players scoring a bucket-load of goals, the similarities might end there.
Conveniently, Kane (57), Mbappé (55) and Haaland (53) are the only three players that have scored 50 non-penalty goals across Europe’s Big Five Leagues since the start of the 2023/24 season. We'll be comparing that output within a pool of 283 players tagged exclusively as a Forward when exporting the data from Stathead FBRef, each with at least 900 minutes played in that period.
I am fully aware that no matter how well this newsletter appears to translate style, we’ll never be able to find players of similar substance.
SCOUTED
Mbappé v Haaland v Kane. Ding ding ding. Let’s begin.
This edition of Monday Night SCOUTED is free to read.
...you just need to subscribe to SCOUTED (as a free member) to unlock it.
Again, this is free. The cost is zero (0). £0. Zilch. Nothing.
Free.
