Haaland Messi GFXGetty/GOAL

Erling Haaland is special but Lionel Messi remains untouchable: Barcelona legend's greatest season revisited

Erling Haaland is a phenomenon. No one can dispute that. Manchester City knew they were getting a top striker when they paid Borussia Dortmund £51 million to sign the Norwegian last summer, but they would never have guessed he would be quite this prolific.

Haaland grabbed his 50th goal in all competitions for City against Fulham on Sunday. It was his 34th in the Premier League - which saw him equal the all-time single season record set by Andy Cole and Alan Shearer.

City's terminator will no doubt get a few more before the season is over, with Pep Guardiola's side still in the hunt for a treble, but he is unlikely to get close to the all-time record for most goals scored across all competitions in a single campaign in one of Europe's major leagues.

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That honour is still held by a certain Lionel Messi, who bagged 73 goals for Barcelona during their 2011-12 season.

Guardiola was managing Barca at the time, and had a simple message for the football world as it tried to make sense of what Messi was doing.

“Don't write about him, don't try to describe him. Watch him," he enthused.

Messi's individual exploits that year will never be eclipsed, and his record is even more remarkable due to the fact he was playing in a disjointed Barca side coming towards the end of an era.

Haaland deserves all the praise he is getting in Manchester, but Messi was on another planet.

GOAL looks back on the Argentine magician's greatest campaign...

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