Haaland vs Mbappé at age 18

Mbappé at 18: the Monaco breakthrough

Mbappé turned 18 on 20 December 2016, five days after a hat-trick against Rennes in the Coupe de la Ligue, and spent the second half of the season as the most talked-about teenager in Europe. He started the campaign as a substitute behind Radamel Falcao and Valère Germain, became a regular in February, scored a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over Metz on 11 February, and finished with 15 Ligue 1 goals in 29 games, only 1,503 minutes of football. The last of them, a 19th-minute opener against Saint-Étienne on 17 May 2017, clinched Monaco's first title in 17 years and ended Paris Saint-Germain's run of four. His 8 assists in all competitions and 5 goals in 6 cup games completed a season of 26 goals, 0.59 per game. He was named Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year, and Paris Saint-Germain paid €180m for him that August, in the first weeks of his age-19 season.

Six Champions League goals before his 19th birthday

Mbappé's 6 goals in 9 Champions League games all came in the knockout rounds. His first was at the Etihad on 21 February 2017, in a 5-3 defeat by Manchester City; he scored again in the 3-1 second leg that put Monaco through on away goals. Two goals in a 3-2 win at Borussia Dortmund and another in the 3-1 return took them to the semi-finals, and his sixth was Monaco's only goal in Turin as Juventus won the second leg 2-1 and the tie 4-1. He scored in five successive knockout matches and was named in the Champions League Team of the Season at 18. Haaland's European football at 18 was Europa League qualifying with Molde in July and August 2018: a penalty against Laçi, two against Hibernian in a 3-0 win and one against Zenit St Petersburg in a play-off round that Molde lost 4-3 on aggregate, 4 goals in 6 games, plus one appearance for Salzburg in the Europa League proper the following spring. His Champions League debut was still a year away.

Haaland at 18: Molde's top scorer, then a Salzburg bit-part

Haaland's age-18 season began in Norway's 2018 Eliteserien, three months before his birthday. On 1 July 2018, still 17, he scored four goals in 21 minutes against league leaders Brann, his first senior hat-trick, and he finished the league season with 12 goals in 25 games as Molde's top scorer and the Eliteserien Breakthrough of the Year, with Molde second behind Rosenborg. Salzburg had agreed a fee of about €8m in August and he joined on 1 January 2019. The rest of the season was a slow start: a debut in the Austrian Cup quarter-final against Wiener Neustädter on 17 February, five appearances in all, and a first Salzburg goal on 12 May in the second of his two league games. Salzburg won the league and cup double, so the dataset credits him with two team trophies to Mbappé's one, but he was a spectator for most of it. His most striking numbers of the spring came at youth level: nine goals in Norway's 12-0 win over Honduras at the Under-20 World Cup on 30 May 2019, which won him the tournament's Golden Boot even though Norway went out in the group stage. Those goals are not in the senior figures on this page.

The shooting numbers: Mbappé at +6.72

Understat has Mbappé's Ligue 1 season but nothing for Haaland's leagues, so the shooting rows are one-sided. They still say something: Mbappé's 15 league goals came from 8.28 expected goals, an overperformance of +6.72 that remains the largest of his career relative to minutes played, on 3.20 shots per 90 and with 8 of 10 big chances scored. None of his 15 were penalties. A goal every 100 minutes in a top-five league at 18 is the benchmark Haaland would answer a year later, with 44 goals in his age-19 season at Salzburg and Dortmund.

International football: a France debut at 18, no Norway cap yet

Mbappé made his France debut on 25 March 2017 against Luxembourg, aged 18 years and 89 days, and won 10 caps in calendar-year 2017 with 1 goal, scored against the Netherlands on 31 August, still 18 but by then a PSG player. Haaland's senior Norway debut did not come until 5 September 2019 against Malta, six weeks after his 19th birthday, so he had no caps at 18; the 2 he won in 2019 came in September, aged 19. In December 2017 Mbappé also finished seventh in the Ballon d'Or, at 18, on the strength of the Monaco season and his first months in Paris. The international page has both careers year by year.

Verdict: Mbappé, by every measure but the medal count

Mbappé scored more goals (26 to 17), at a better rate (0.59 to 0.49), in a stronger league, with 6 Champions League goals to none, a league title he decided himself and a senior international career already under way. Haaland's two Salzburg medals are the only column he wins, and he played five games for them. The running total at the end of the age-18 seasons was Mbappé 27 club goals, Haaland 21, a lead of 6 that would be gone within a year: the same-age comparison follows the running total through every age, and the goals-by-age article picks the story up at 20.