Haaland vs Mbappé Best Season: 52 Goals in 2022-23 Against the Case for Mbappé's 44
Haaland vs Mbappé best season compared: Haaland's 52-goal treble year at Man City against Mbappé's 44-goal seasons, by goals, rate, xG and trophies.
Ask which of the two has had the better single season and most people answer in one breath: Haaland, 2022-23, the treble. The number is 52 goals in 53 games, and nothing on Mbappé's side of the ledger reaches it. But "best season" is a looser question than "most goals", and Mbappé's case rests on a different kind of year: more assists, a World Cup final, a Champions League top-scorer award of his own. This page lays the peak seasons side by side, using the club numbers in the site dataset, and tests the obvious answer against the alternatives.
The peak seasons at a glance
| Haaland 2022-23 | Mbappé 2023-24 | Mbappé 2024-25 | Mbappé 2025-26 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Club | Manchester City | Paris Saint-Germain | Real Madrid | Real Madrid |
| Appearances | 53 | 48 | 59 | 44 |
| Goals | 52 | 44 | 44 | 42 |
| Goals per game | 0.98 | 0.92 | 0.75 | 0.95 |
| League goals | 36 | 27 | 31 | 25 |
| Champions League goals | 12 | 8 | 7 | 15 |
| Assists (all comps) | n/a | 10 | 5 | 6 |
| Major trophies | League, FA Cup, Champions League | Ligue 1, Coupe de France | UEFA Super Cup, Intercontinental Cup | None |
Haaland's 52 is the biggest single-season total either player has produced, and the margin is eight goals over Mbappé's best. On goals per game Mbappé's 2025-26 gets closest, at 0.95 to 0.98, but it came with no trophy and ended in a Champions League semi-final. On trophies there is no contest at all: Haaland's best season ended with a treble, and Mbappé has never won the Champions League in any of his.
How the two careers stack up, season by season
The table below puts every season from Haaland's first full year in Germany to the present alongside Mbappé's, so the peaks can be seen against the seasons around them.
| Season | Haaland apps | Haaland goals | Mbappé apps | Mbappé goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | 40 | 44 | 37 | 30 |
| 2020-21 | 41 | 41 | 47 | 42 |
| 2021-22 | 30 | 29 | 46 | 39 |
| 2022-23 | 53 | 52 | 43 | 41 |
| 2023-24 | 45 | 38 | 48 | 44 |
| 2024-25 | 48 | 34 | 59 | 44 |
| 2025-26 | 52 | 38 | 44 | 42 |
| 2026-27 (in progress) | 10 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
Two things jump out. Haaland has three seasons above 40 goals (44 in 2019-20, 41 in 2020-21 and 52 in 2022-23); Mbappé has five, counting 42 in 2020-21, 41 in 2022-23, 44, 44 and 42 in the three seasons since. Haaland's peak is higher; Mbappé's plateau is longer and, since 2022, has not dropped below 41. The other point is appearances. Mbappé's 2024-25 total of 59 games is the heaviest season either has played, inflated by the Club World Cup and Intercontinental Cup, and it is why his 44 that year carries the lowest rate of the four peak seasons.
Haaland 2022-23: the case for the obvious answer
The season breaks down as 36 Premier League goals in 35 games, 12 Champions League goals in 11, and 4 in the domestic cups. The 36 broke the Premier League single-season record, previously 34 in a 38-game season, in his first year in England; the 12 in Europe included five in one night against RB Leipzig in the round of 16.
The individual honours list from that year is the longest either player has collected in a single season: Premier League Golden Boot, European Golden Shoe, UEFA Men's Player of the Year, PFA Players' Player of the Year, FWA Footballer of the Year, Premier League Player and Young Player of the Season, Champions League top scorer and the Gerd Müller Trophy. He finished second in the 2023 Ballon d'Or, behind Lionel Messi's World Cup year.
The underlying numbers back the headline. In the league that season Understat records 36 goals from 32.76 expected goals, a conversion rate of 29.3 per cent of shots and 1.16 goals per 90 minutes. He has not matched that per-90 figure in any full season since.
Mbappé: three candidates, not one
Mbappé's best season depends on what is being measured, which is itself part of the answer.
By goals: 2023-24 and 2024-25, tied on 44. The PSG year (44 in 48) brought a sixth straight Ligue 1 top-scorer title, the Champions League top-scorer award with 8, a league and cup double, and a semi-final exit to Dortmund. The first Madrid year (44 in 59) brought the Pichichi and the European Golden Shoe with 31 La Liga goals, two minor trophies, and a trophyless domestic season for the club. Understat has the Madrid league campaign at 0.95 goals per 90 against 1.13 for the PSG one; the PSG season was the sharper of the two, the Madrid season the more durable.
By rate: 2025-26. 42 goals in 44 games is 0.95 a match, his highest in any season of 40 or more appearances, driven by a Champions League campaign of 15 goals in 11 games that won him a second top-scorer award. The season ended without a trophy.
By all-round output: 2021-22. 39 goals and 21 assists, the only season in which a player has topped both the Ligue 1 scoring and assist charts. That is 60 goal involvements, more than any Mbappé season since, and arguably more than any Haaland season: Haaland's verified assists are league-only in this dataset, but his eight Premier League assists in 2022-23 point to a total in the low sixties at best, from a season with 52 goals.
By what happened in between: 2018-19. Worth a footnote. 39 goals in 43 games aged 20, with 1.27 league goals per 90, the highest per-90 rate of his career. It is the season that most resembles Haaland's 2022-23 in shape, and it came five years earlier in his life.
The international year that does not count here
The tables above are club-only, and that cuts against Mbappé. His 2022-23 club season (41 goals in 43) sat around a World Cup in which he scored eight, including a hat-trick in the final, and won the Golden Boot. Add the Qatar goals and his calendar 2022 is the most complete year either player has had: league top scorer, World Cup Golden Boot, a final decided on penalties. Haaland's equivalent came in 2026, when his 38-goal club season was followed by 7 goals at the World Cup; Mbappé scored 10 at the same tournament. The Mbappé World Cup stats page covers that side of the comparison.
Verdict
Haaland's 2022-23 is the best single season either player has had, and it is not especially close. 52 goals, a Premier League record, the Champions League top-scorer award and a treble is a combination Mbappé has never put together; his best totals stop at 44, his best club season ended in a semi-final, and his best rate came in a season with no trophy.
Where Mbappé wins is in the question this page cannot settle with one table. His best seasons are spread across more measures: the 60-involvement year of 2021-22, the World Cup winter of 2022-23, the 15-goal European campaign of 2025-26. Haaland has one season that beats all of them on goals and silverware, and several that beat them on goals alone. If the question is "whose peak was higher", it is Haaland's. If it is "who has had more seasons that could be called his best", it is Mbappé's.
More: career stats compared · goals per game · compared at the same age · goal contributions · club stats by season
