{"id":788759,"date":"2026-07-09T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788759\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T08:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:00:08","slug":"world-cup-2026-erling-haaland-v-harry-kane-who-would-you-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788759\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Erling Haaland v Harry Kane &#8211; who would you pick?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pundits at this World Cup have had plenty to enjoy given the performances of all the big names, with Haaland and Kane no exception.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking after the win over Brazil, ex-England goalkeeper Joe Hart described Haaland as &#8220;an absolute monster&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He&#8217;s taken all the stress out of everything,&#8221; Hart added. &#8220;He is so relaxed, is taking care of business on the pitch and enjoying every minute at the World Cup.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former England captain Wayne Rooney agreed, saying: &#8220;Haaland has given his whole country the belief they can go really far in the competition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When describing Kane&#8217;s winner against DR Congo, the pair were equally glowing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s sublime,&#8221; Rooney said. &#8220;Like all great centre-forwards, he doesn&#8217;t even have to look at the goalkeeper &#8211; it&#8217;s instinctive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hart added: &#8220;He trusts his technique and from the moment the ball left his foot, he would have been celebrating.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Haaland and Kane have actually only played each other twice, and both in the space of three weeks in early 2023. Haaland claimed the first, scoring the equaliser as City came from two goals down to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/62776442\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">win 4-2 at Etihad Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kane got his revenge at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium shortly after as he grabbed the only goal in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/64532175\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a 1-0 victory<\/a>, becoming Spurs&#8217; all-time leading scorer in the process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The gloves are off with a World Cup semi-final on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pundits at this World Cup have had plenty to enjoy given the performances of all the big names,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-788759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}