Haaland 2022-23 vs Mbappé 2023-24: Two Peak Seasons Compared Line by Line

The best season comparison settled the broad question: Haaland's 2022-23 is the highest peak either player has reached. This page narrows it to the two seasons most often set against each other, Haaland's first year at Manchester City and Mbappé's last at Paris Saint-Germain, and goes through them competition by competition. Both were title-winning seasons. Both ended with the player as Champions League top scorer. One ended with the trophy.

The two seasons in one table

The gap is eight goals and five appearances, so Haaland's edge is in volume rather than rate: 0.98 a game to 0.92. Where the two seasons separate is Europe. Haaland scored 12 Champions League goals in 11 games and lifted the trophy; Mbappé scored 8 in 12 and went out in the semi-final. Both led the competition's scoring chart.

The league seasons

Haaland's 36 Premier League goals broke the single-season record for a 38-game season; Mbappé's 27 Ligue 1 goals won him a sixth consecutive top-scorer title. The raw totals are nine apart, but the two leagues differ in length and in difficulty, and the per-90 numbers from Understat put them closer together than the totals suggest.

Read across the rows and the two seasons describe two different strikers. Haaland shot less often (4 a game to 5) from better positions, with an xG per shot of 0.266 to Mbappé's 0.177, and converted at 29.3 per cent. Mbappé took more shots of lower quality, created far more for others (1.68 key passes per 90 to 0.93), and beat his expected goals by 5.7, almost double Haaland's 3.2. Haaland's season was the more efficient use of chances; Mbappé's was the more complete attacking season, and arguably the more unlikely one given the chances he was working from.

On goals per 90 the two are nearly level, 1.16 to 1.13. The nine-goal gap in league totals is largely a gap in minutes: Haaland played 2803 to Mbappé's 2144, with Mbappé's season including a stretch where he was left out while his contract situation was unresolved. The goals per game article covers the rate comparison across whole careers.

Penalties

Both players were their club's penalty taker. Haaland took 7 in the Premier League in 2022-23 and scored all 7. Mbappé took 8 in Ligue 1 in 2023-24 and scored 6, missing 2. Strip the penalties out and the league totals become 29 and 21, a gap of eight rather than nine. Penalties shaped the shape of both seasons but not the order between them. The full record is on the penalties page.

The Champions League campaigns

This is where the comparison is decided.

Haaland's 7 knockout goals in 7 games included the five against Leipzig and two across the quarter-final against Bayern Munich, then none in the semi-final or final; City won both without him scoring. Mbappé's 5 in 6 were spread across Real Sociedad and Barcelona, and like Haaland he went quiet in the semi-final. The difference is the result. PSG lost both legs to Dortmund and Mbappé's PSG career ended one round short of the final he had reached in 2020. Haaland became a European champion at 22, something Mbappé has not managed in any season.

Hat-tricks and big nights

Haaland scored six club hat-tricks in 2022-23: Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United inside his first ten league games, Wolves in January, five against Leipzig in March and three against Burnley in the FA Cup four days later. Mbappé scored three for PSG in 2023-24, against Reims and Montpellier in the league and Revel in the Coupe de France, plus one for France against Gibraltar in a Euro qualifier. Six against three is the clearest single-number gap in the whole comparison, and it reflects the shape of the two seasons: Haaland's goals came in bursts, Mbappé's were spread more evenly, with the Ligue 1 run of 27 built mostly from singles and braces. Both lists are on the hat-tricks page.

What each season won

Haaland's season ended with the treble, the Premier League Golden Boot, the European Golden Shoe, UEFA Men's Player of the Year, PFA and FWA awards, the Champions League top-scorer award and second place in the 2023 Ballon d'Or behind Messi. Mbappé's ended with Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the Trophée des Champions, a sixth Ligue 1 top-scorer title, a fifth Ligue 1 Player of the Year award, the Champions League top-scorer award and sixth place in the 2024 Ballon d'Or.

The domestic honours are comparable, allowing for the leagues. The European ones are not: Haaland's 2022-23 is one of the few seasons in which the Champions League winner's leading scorer was also the competition's top scorer, and Mbappé's 2023-24, for all its quality, is the fourth of his Champions League campaigns to stop at the semi-final or final without a medal.

Verdict

Haaland's 2022-23 beats Mbappé's 2023-24 on goals, hat-tricks, efficiency and trophies, and the margin is the Champions League. On the league pitch the two seasons are closer than the totals suggest: almost identical goals per 90, with Haaland the better finisher and Mbappé the better creator. Mbappé's season was the more all-round performance from a player at the centre of everything PSG did. Haaland's was the more ruthless, and it came with the one trophy Mbappé's did not. If the question is which of the two seasons a striker would rather have had, the answer is the one that ended in Istanbul.

More: best season compared · Champions League knockout goals · finishing efficiency · career stats