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The fastest players to 250 career goals in the 21st century: Haaland, Messi, Ronaldo…

While Manchester City suffered a heavy 5-1 defeat to Arsenal in the Premier League over the weekend, Erling Haaland managed to break an incredible goalscoring record.

His fine header from a searching Savinho cross briefly brought Pep Guardiola’s side level but it also meant that he had reached 250 senior club goals by the age of 24.

But where does the Norwegian striker rank among the fastest players to reach the milestone? With that in mind, we’ve compiled a short list of the players to reach the milestone in the fewest games.

5. Robert Lewandowski and Cristiano Ronaldo

Both men tied on 451 games to reach the milestone and both have aged like a fine wine when it comes to goalscoring. Take Lewandowski, now 36, he’s on 30 goals in 32 games this season for Barcelona, boasting 598 goals in 803 games. With 282 of those coming after he turned 30.

With Ronaldo, who is set to turn 40 years of age on February 5, he has a remarkable 780 club goals in 1037 games. Similar to Lewandowski, Ronaldo has netted 344 goals after turning 30 and both men will be inspirations for Haaland who aims to emulate their incredible records.

4. Harry Kane

With 250 goals in 430 games, Kane’s goalscoring record perhaps deserves more praise. He struggled in the early parts of his career and had loans at Leicester City, Norwich, Leyton Orient and Millwall before exploding at Tottenham. The season before the 2014-15 campaign where he hit 21 Premier League goals, he had managed eight in eight in the Premier League 2.

He simply came into the side, started scoring and never stopped. Leaving England for Bayern Munich has only seen his goalscoring improve, netting 70 times in 72 games with 22 assists and this is surely going to be the season where he finally wins a trophy – his career certainly deserves one.


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3. Kylian Mbappe

Seen as the heir to both Lionel Messi and Ronaldo, Mbappe’s record shows he is certainly on track to be considered one of the greats. It took him just 332 games to achieve the feat which proves he has been one of the best goalscorers across the past decade – falling just short of Lionel Messi.

He has continued from that milestone, managing 312 goals in 417 games and despite having a slow start at Real Madrid (by his standards) he still has 21 goals in 33 games with a contract until 2029, we expect those numbers to improve. Ronaldo netted 33 times in his first season at Madrid and Mbappe will likely surpass that, giving him hope of maintaining his current course.

2. Lionel Messi

Regarded as the greatest of all time by a large portion of football fans, it is important to remember that Messi was the ultimate wonderkid who lived up to the hype. Netting 250 goals in 327 games meant he quickly became a world-class player and one of the best in the world at a young age. He also had 100 assists at that point.

While Haaland is an out-and-out goalscorer, Messi was by far the most creative on the list, managing an incredible amount of assists and his overall performances leading up to the 250 goals were mesmeric, winning the Ballon d’Or twice across that time. Similar to the rest of the older players on this list, his record was consistently incredible and even got better as time went on.

Lamine Yamal Lionel Messi Career Milestone 20 career goals Barcelona Spain Argentina comparison

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1. Erling Haaland

With such incredible names on the list, Haaland topping the charts after 250 goals in just 313 games aged 24 is some achievement. His goals have helped Red Bull Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City all win major honours while he has picked up two Golden Boots in two full seasons in England.

He also broke the record in England for the most goals in a Premier League season, surpassing Mohamed Salah’s 32-goal record in just his first season. At the same time, he helped fire City to a historic treble and their first European Cup. While he continues to get criticised for his lack of touches per game, his record speaks for itself and he stands out as arguably the best goalscorer in world football across the past few years. And who knows what records he might hold when he eventually hangs up his boots.