The Next Generation — Under-21 Players Who Will Define the Late 2020s
Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, and Erling Haaland are already established. Who comes next? Twelve under-21 players who will define football from 2027 onward.
Born in Leeds, raised in Bryne, made in Salzburg, completed in Dortmund and Manchester. Haaland's career to date, the numbers behind it, and what makes him football's most-discussed goalscorer.
Complete World Cup 2026 schedule with kickoff times auto-adjusted to your timezone. All 48 nations, 12 groups, knockout bracket, plus how to subscribe via Google / Apple / Outlook calendar.
Japan's road to World Cup 2026: full Group F schedule (Netherlands, Tunisia, Sweden), key players to watch, and the Samurai Blue's pursuit of a first quarterfinal.
Region-by-region World Cup 2026 broadcast guide: Fox + Telemundo (US), BBC + ITV (UK), TSN (Canada), Optus + SBS (Australia), and more. VPN options for fans abroad.
Subscribe to a live World Cup 2026 calendar feed that auto-updates when fixtures shift. Step-by-step setup for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook.
See also: KOC Erling Haaland player profile.
Erling Braut Haaland turned 25 in 2025 and is already comfortably the most-discussed striker of his generation. The statistical profile is so lopsided that the conversation has shifted from "how good is he" to "what gets in the way."
| Season | Club | Apps | Goals | Goals/90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | Salzburg / Dortmund | 41 | 44 | 1.07 |
| 2020-21 | Borussia Dortmund | 41 | 41 | 1.00 |
| 2021-22 | Borussia Dortmund | 30 | 29 | 0.97 |
| 2022-23 | Manchester City | 53 | 52 | 0.98 |
| 2023-24 | Manchester City | 45 | 38 | 0.84 |
| 2024-25 | Manchester City | 49 | 41 | 0.84 |
(Numbers approximate; verify against source databases.)
His debut Premier League season — 36 goals in 35 league appearances — set the modern record.
Three things:
Norway didn't qualify for the 2022 World Cup. The 2026 qualifying campaign is Haaland's first realistic shot at a major tournament — a unique career narrative for a player of his profile. Watch the qualifying schedule via team pages on KOC.
Haaland was born in Leeds, England, on 21 July 2000, while his father Alfie was playing for Leeds United. He grew up in Bryne, Norway. He came through Bryne FK and Molde (under Ole Gunnar Solskjær) before joining Red Bull Salzburg in January 2019, where he scored a hat-trick on his Champions League debut against Genk. Borussia Dortmund (2020-2022) followed, where he opened with a Bundesliga-debut hat-trick.
His 2022 move to Manchester City for around €60M proved transformative: 36 league goals in his debut Premier League season — a single-season record — and 52 in all competitions, plus a Champions League winner's medal as part of City's treble. For Norway he has scored 55 goals in 48 senior appearances, making him the country's all-time top scorer. At the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup he scored nine goals in a single match against Honduras.
→ See the full KOC player profile for stats and fixtures.