Erling Haaland, born in Leeds and raised in Norway, set the Premier League record of 36 goals in a season in his first year at Manchester City. He scored both goals in City’s 2-0 win at Porto on matchday 1 of the 2026-27 Champions League.
Erling Braut Haaland was born on 21 July 2000 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, while his father, Alf-Inge Haaland, was playing for Leeds United. In 2004 the family moved to Bryne, his parents’ hometown in Norway. His mother, Gry Marita Braut, was a national heptathlon champion in the 1990s. As a child he also played handball, golf and track and field, and he reportedly set a world record for his age group in the standing long jump at five, with a distance of 1.63 metres.
He began at the Bryne academy at five. In 2015 and 2016 he played for the reserve side in Norway’s fourth tier and scored 18 goals in 18 matches, including a hat-trick at 16. In May 2016 the caretaker manager gave him his first start, three months before his 16th birthday, in a second-tier match against Ranheim. After 16 senior appearances for Bryne he moved to Molde, where he played under Ole Gunnar Solskjær, before signing for Red Bull Salzburg in 2019 and winning the Austrian Bundesliga and Austrian Cup.
His Champions League performances earned a move in 2020 to Borussia Dortmund. There he won the DFB-Pokal in 2021 and was named Bundesliga Player of the Season. In 2022 he joined Manchester City for €60 million and played a pivotal role in the club’s treble-winning first season. He was top scorer in the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League that year, setting records for most goals in a Premier League season (36) and most goals by a Premier League player in all competitions in a season (52).
At City he has won two Premier League titles and three Premier League Golden Boots. His individual honours include the PFA Players’ Player of the Year, UEFA Men’s Player of the Year, IFFHS World’s Best Player and Golden Boy awards. He has finished runner-up for the Ballon d’Or, was included in the FIFPRO World 11 for 2021 to 2024, and is the quickest player to score eight Premier League hat-tricks. On 23 August 2026 he made his 200th appearance for City, in a 2-1 win over Bournemouth, and on 28 August scored twice in a 4-1 win at Crystal Palace.
For Norway he won the Golden Boot at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup, where he scored a record nine goals in a single match. He made his senior debut that year and has since scored more than 60 goals, making him Norway’s all-time top scorer. He reached 50 international goals in 46 games, and in the qualifying campaign for the 2026 World Cup he scored 16 goals in eight matches, scoring in every game. At the tournament itself, Norway’s first World Cup since 1998, he scored seven goals, was named in the Dream XI and helped Norway reach the quarter-finals, their best-ever finish.
In the Champions League this season, he scored both goals in City’s 2-0 win at Porto, a header and a close-range finish in the second half. City face Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad on Wednesday. Away from the pitch he runs a YouTube channel whose videos had passed 100 million views by 2026, adding to a profile that has made him one of the most recognisable players in the sport.
Image: Erling Haaland playing for Norway in June 2026 (file photo). Photo: Bryan Berlin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
