The best performance of the September international action officially belongs to Erling Haaland, scoring five goals and assisting two others in Norway’s 11–1 win against Moldova.
The Manchester City striker assisted Norway’s first goal of the night, then bagged a first half hat-trick, before finding the back of the net two more times in the second half and setting up the final goal of the game.
It was another dominant performance from the best centre forward in the world, one that saw him deservedly enter an exclusive list.
With his merciless showing against Moldova, Haaland became the fourth professional player ever to get a 10.0 rating on FotMob. He joins Belgium’s Thomas Meunier’s three-goal and three-assist performance against Gibraltar in 2017 as well as Neymar Jr’s four-goal involvement showing against Toulouse in his Paris-Saint Germain debut at the Parc des Princes in 2017.
Striker Omar Faraj was the most recent player to merit a 10 rating thanks to a five goal performance in the Swedish league. Additionally, famous YouTuber Simon Minter also received a 10 rating by FotMob because of his stellar performance in the 2022 Sidemen Charity Match. If you want to go ahead and count Miniminter that would make Haaland five.
Haaland could’ve scored a sixth goal but instead allowed Thelo Aasgaard to dispatch a penalty-kick late in the game to complete a hat-trick of his own. Ironically, Aasgard scored a fourth goal and ended the match with a 9.9 rating after coming off the bench.
Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard also flirted with joining the exclusive list, but his brace and assist were only good enough for a 9.6 rating.
The game marked Haaland’s fifth hat-trick in 45 total appearances for Norway and his five goals resulted in him now having more goals (48) than caps for his country. Similarly, Haaland has more goals (49) than appearances in the Champions League (48).
The 25-year-old striker has scored goals for fun for the better part of the last decade. It doesn’t look like that’s goign to change for quite some time, for club and country.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Erling Haaland Joins Neymar in Elite Category After Five-Goal Performance.