Norway defeated Iraq 4-1 in their 2026 World Cup debut. They form part of Group I alongside France and Senegal, which stands as one of the most complicated groups, and starting with a victory is crucial. Erling Haaland was the absolute protagonist with his brace, starting the comparison of how the World Cup debuts of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo went.
Haaland’s debut was vastly superior to the ones that Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi had. Haaland managed to score two goals in the first half of the match and one kind of assist for an own goal by Iraq. He scored one in the 29th minute and another in the 43rd minute, giving the lead for the victory to Norway, who have a top position in the FIFA ranking, securing three key points.
Haaland was, without a doubt, the most influential player for Norway in the debut. In addition to the two goals and his dominant presence in the attack, he recorded six shots. four of those shots went on target with two goals scored, showing tremendous effectiveness.
Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup debut
Messi entered the group stage match of the 2006 World Cup against Serbia on June 16 in the 75th minute. He contributed with one goal and one assist in the 6-0 victory for Argentina. This performance remains below the debut of Haaland, considering the context and situation of the matches.
Erling Haaland of Norway
On the other hand, Ronaldo was 21 years old in his first World Cup match, featuring as a starter for Portugal against Angola in the group stage of the 2006 tournament on June 11. He could not score, received a yellow card, and was substituted at the 60th minute in a match that Portugal won 1-0. More was already expected from him since he was one of the stars of Manchester United at that time.
How many World Cup braces do Messi and Ronaldo have?
Lionel Messi, who is one of the top scorers, accumulates a total of two braces throughout his World Cup participations, while Cristiano Ronaldo has no official braces in his history in the tournament. The Portuguese star skipped that box entirely, since the only match of his World Cup career in which he scored more than one goal ended up becoming a hat trick.
For Messi, his first brace arrived in the group stage of Brazil 2014 during the 3-2 victory against Nigeria. However, his best brace was, without any discussion, the one from the Qatar 2022 final against France. He opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the first half and later appeared in extra time during the 108th minute to push the ball in following an assist from Lautaro Martinez.
Cristiano Ronaldo, due to the lack of a pure brace to compare, his best and most remembered scoring exhibition in a single World Cup match was his iconic hat trick against Spain in Russia 2018. This matchup featured his highly remembered amazing free-kick goal.
