"It annoys me a little bit that I didn't score with my last kick of the game." That's Erling Haaland, aged 18, after netting nine goals in a single World Cup match. Elite doesn't cover it.
The game in question was Norway's U20 World Cup group stage clash against Honduras in Poland. Haaland, then playing for Red Bull Salzburg, scored four times before halftime — then added five more after the break in a 12-0 thrashing. He had one final chance to reach double figures in the dying seconds. He missed. It kept him up at night.
A record that has no realistic challenger
Nine goals by one player in a single World Cup fixture is a number that exists in its own atmosphere. For context, the all-time record at the senior World Cup is five — Oleg Salenko for Russia against Cameroon at USA 94. Haaland's tally is nearly double that, and it came as a teenager in a youth tournament.
Salenko's five-goal game remains the senior benchmark 30 years later. Nobody has come close. Scale that logic up to nine and you start to understand just how absurd Haaland's afternoon in Poland actually was.
Norway were eliminated in the group stage anyway, losing their other two games despite Haaland's rampage. Salenko had a similar fate — Russia also went out at the group stage, even though his five goals and a penalty against Sweden earned him a share of the Golden Boot alongside Hristo Stoichkov.
Now doing it at senior level
Haaland has now carried that same ruthlessness into the senior Norway setup, scoring twice in their opening 4-1 win over Iraq in World Cup qualifying Group I. Same player, bigger stage, same outcome for defenders asked to mark him.
At Manchester City he's already rewritten Premier League and Champions League scoring records. The senior World Cup is the one major frontier left on his CV — and he's only just started writing that chapter.
He still hasn't forgiven himself for missing that tenth goal in 2019. Imagine being the Honduras goalkeeper.
