First duel between the recordist Cristiano Ronaldo and the ‘threat’ Haaland

Nsunday, on the second day of Group A4, the Ullevaal Stadium will be the stage of one of the most anticipated duels of world football, with Ronaldo and Haaland sharing for the first time the lawn, although in very different stages of the career and with completely different goals.

At the age of 41 (it is 42 in February next year), the captain of the Portuguese team is getting closer and closer to the end of his career, with all the attention to the 1,000 goals and to further strengthen the legacy he will leave in the history of football.

Ronaldo already has reserved place among the ‘gods’, but Haaland, who is only 26 years old and still has a lot ahead of him, is also on his way to ‘Olympus’ and may even erase some achievements of the Madeiran player.

The numbers that Ronaldo presents today in international football would have been pointed out as impossible a few years ago, but the truth is that in 23 years wearing the Portuguese jersey, the advanced one has overcome all barriers.

Just as a letter of presentation appear the 146 goals in the service of Portugal, number that leaves Ronaldo as the best ever marker of selections and only European to pass the bar of the hundred.

The records continue with 14 goals scored in the final stages of Europeans, 41 in the qualifying stages for World Championships, 41 in the qualifying stages for European Championships and 10 ‘hat-tricks’ by the ‘quinas’ team.

In Mundials, Ronaldo takes 11 goals, far from Mbappé's 22, and in the League of Nations has so far recorded 15.

When the advance made his debut in Portugal on August 20, 2003, Erling Haaland had just celebrated three years old.

Today at 26, the player born in Leeds has already scored 64 goals for Norway in 56 games, and soon surpassed the record of Jorgen Juve, a former player who since 1937 was the best scorer of all Nordics, with 33.

At the global level, Haaland follows the 35th place of the best markers ever, still far from Ronaldo, but in the League of Nations it has already surpassed Portuguese and leads the record with 21.

The Norwegian needed only one World Cup to make seven goals, being only four of Cristiano Ronaldo's, who was in six and is a record winner of final stages along with the Argentine Lionel Messi.

In qualifying for World Championships, Haaland already takes 21 goals and is only 20 from Portuguese, and already six times celebrated a ‘hat-trick’, being also clearly on the way to overcoming Ronaldo’s record.

However, Manchester City's advance has not yet experienced any European Championships and in the qualification only scored six goals.

The two players were very close, in 2022, to meeting in the field, but at club level, in a Manchester derby in the Premier League, but Ronaldo did not leave the United bank, while Haaland signed a ‘hat-trick’.

Norway-Portugal is scheduled for 20:45 (19:45 from Lisbon) and will have arbitration by Frenchman François Letexier.