Erling Haaland makes record start to 2025-26 and breaks record held by Lionel Messi & Cristiano Ronaldo | OneFootball

We are already three months into the European season and while the league tables are beginning to take shape, the Golden Boot race is also bubbling along nicely.

Manchester City’s Erling Haaland leads the charge but where does his effort rank in the all-time list?

Here are the top five scorers in history after the first three months of a season.

5. Robert Lewandowski (2021-22 – 28 goals)

Fresh from being robbed of a Ballon d’Or, Lewandowski began the 2021-22 season with a bang.

In the first three months, he scored 28 goals in 24 games, beating his previous record of 27 in 22, as Bayern went on to win a 31st Bundesliga title.

In total, Lewandowski would score 35 goals in 34 league games and set a record for most away goals in a single season at 19.

4. Harry Kane (2025-26 – 28 goals)

While Haaland may be dominating the top of the scoring charts, Bayern’s Kane is not far behind.

The England captain has scored in all but three Bundesliga games so far and has failed to score in just one Champions League match so far.

Kane has already notched up 100 goals for the German club since moving in 2023 and Champions League success for Bayern plus a World Cup for England would make the 32-year-old a heavy favourite for the Ballon d’Or.

3. Lionel Messi (2012-13 – 29 goals)

It would not be a top goalscorer list if Messi did not feature somewhere and his best early-season form came in 2012.

In total, Messi scored 46 La Liga goals as Barcelona won the league with 100 points and he set a record of 21 consecutive games in which he scored.

After three months, Messi had 28 goals in 22 games, giving him a ratio of 1.27 goals every game.

29 goals in 25 games at a rate of 1.16

2. Cristiano Ronaldo (2013-14 – 32 goals)

And if Messi is on a scoring chart, chances are Ronaldo is too. Clearly not happy at his long-term rival’s exploits the previous season, Ronaldo put together his own run in 2013.

In a season that would see him lift the Champions League and be the top scorer in La Liga, Ronaldo started the year in excellent form with 32 goals in 22 games.

That goalscoring run saw him go on to win the Ballon d’Or, although Madrid did miss out on the La Liga title to city rivals Atletico.

1. Erling Haaland (2025-26 – 32 goals)

Haaland’s blistering start to the year has seen him draw level with Ronaldo’s 32 goals but the Norwegian has done it in two fewer games than the Portuguese superstar.

14 of Haaland’s goals have come in the Premier League with Tottenham and Aston Villa the only teams he has failed to score against. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Haaland has not scored a hat-trick as of yet but has got two in five games.

If Haaland was in any way annoyed at the lack of a club football hat-trick, he made up for it with five goals for Norway against Moldova.

The rate at which he is scoring is 1.6 goals per game, the best of any player on this list.