Currently it’s King who has 17 goals in 57 games, and Sorloth who has 12 goals in 36 games.
Previously his predecessor are Carew (24 goals in 91 games), and Iversen (21 goals in 79 games).
And way back it’s Ole (23 goals in 91 games) and Flo (23 goals in 76 games).
So yeah, he is outstanding (12 goals in 15 games over 3 years) if compared to those strikers. But those aren’t exactly top strikers at their time though. By this current rate (avg around 5 goals per year), he has a very high chance of becoming Norway all time top scorer in future (current holder has 33 goals), and perhaps even getting near to Lukaku numbers (68 goals) in 10-12 years time. Who knows, if he is lucky with injuries and remain consistent over next decade, maybe he would even have Lewandowski kind of international career (74 goals in 128 games) when he retired. That would be truly outstanding, but he hasn’t done it yet, so it’s still abit too early to judge.
All his predecessors have scored at a 1 in 3 ratio or worse, Haaland has so far scored at a 4 in 5 ratio. So more than double the ratio of the closest predecessor. Norway's national team does not deliver the same working conditions as the greater nations does for their strikers.
Let's compare his NT record with Englands' pride, Harry Kane, and our own GOAT, Cristiano. I think it is fair to claim that Kane and Ronaldo has better working conditions in all the categories below:
Kane for England (ranked 4 in the world):
Against top 50 nations:
42 games, 18 goals (5 penalties) and 3 assists.
0,43 goals/game
0,31 non-penalty goals/game
0,38 non-penalty goals+assists/game
Against top 15 nations:
24 games, 6 goals (1 penalty) and 3 assists
0,25 goals/game
0,21 non-penalty goals/game
0,33 non-penalty goals+assists/game
Against nations outside top 50 in the world playing for a powerhouse nation:
25 games, 30 goals (8 penalties) and 11assists
1,2 goals/game
0,88 non-penalty goals/game
1,32 non-penalty goals+assists/game
Kane has a fabulous record of knocking them in against weaker opponents though.......just like other big stars:
CR7 for Portugal (ranked 8 in the world) against top 15 nations:
53 games, 21 goals (3 penalties) and 11 assists
0,40 goals/game
0,34 non-penalty goals/game
0,55 non-penalty goals+assists/game
CR7 for Portugal against top 50 nations:
123 games, 60 goals (5 penalties) and 23 assists
0,49 goals/game
0,45 non-penalty goals/game
0,63 non-penalty goals+assists/game
CR7 against nations outside top 50 in the world:
61 games, 55 goals (11 penalties) and 18 assists
0,9 goals/game
0,72 non-penalty goals/game
1,02 non-penalty goals+assists/game
Haaland for Norway (ranked 41 in the world):
Against top 50 nations:
7 games, 5 goals (0 penalties)
0,71 non-penalty goals/game
Against top 15 nations:
1 game, 1 goal
1,0 non-penalty/game
Against nations outside top 50 in the world:
8 games, 7 goals (1 penalty) and 1 assist
0,88 goals/game
0,75 non-penalty goals/game
0,88 non-penalty goals+assists/game
The "only does it against weaker opponents" doesn't hold any truth for Haaland. He scores more than the greats against strong opponents playing for a weaker team.
It is still a very small sample size for Haaland of course, but who would you say has the best goalscoring ratio of Haaland and the other 2 against good opponents?
.....and who has the bigger tendency of doing it against weaker opponents (playing for power house nations)?
This 5 goals a year thing also doesn't stand. His debut was 26 months ago. He's missed 10 of Norway's matches since then because of covid-restrictions and injuries. He played 80 minutes in his first 12 months of NT football. The last 16 months he's scored 12 goals in 13 matches, which is pretty damn good for a 20/21 year old playing for a national team like Norway. If you can find examples of players scoring at that ratio at that age for their national teams in football history, please find them and give me examples other than Pele or Puskas (both playing for the best teams in world at the time). R9 scored 20 in 24 games in 96/97 including 4 penalties playing for #1 Brazil.
It's not comparable with what Kane has done for England (4th in the world) against Andorra, San Marino, Lithuania, Albania or even Hungary and Poland. England scored 39 goals in their 10 games in the WC-Q-group, Norway scored 15 in theirs including games against a top 10 nation. Put Haaland in any top 10 NT and you would see a much better output.