Opinion – The World is a Ball: The top scorers who are out, or virtually out, of the World Cup

To the delight of football fans, the most awaited competition of all, the World Cup, is approaching. In just over two months, on the 20th of November, the ball will roll on the lawns of Qatar.

Many goals are expected, since the goal is the essence of football, but the ball will not reach the nets in this World Cup through the feet or the head of some of the top scorers of the moment.

The most felt absence will be that of Erling Haaland, the young man (22 years old) Manchester City striker who, after shining in Salzburg (Austria) and Borussia Dortmund (Germany), makes a devastating start to the season for the English club.

Haaland, 1.94 m, left-handed, is the top scorer in the Premier League, with ten goals in six matches. In the Champions League, he has three goals, being one of the top scorers after two rounds of the group stage, alongside Robert Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappé.

The strong and now acrobatic (see the goal he scored against his former team, Dortmund, this week in the Champions League) striker is not going to Qatar because his country, Norway, did not qualify.

Haaland’s goals (five in six games) were insufficient, and the Norwegians finished third behind the Netherlands and Turkey in Group G of the European qualifier.

There are more top scorers from championships who are definitely out of the World Cup or who are very unlikely to be selected by the coaches of their respective nations.

Bologna’s Marko Arnautovic, 33, leads the Serie A table with six goals in six matches. Austria did not get a place in the Cup, being behind, in its group, Denmark, Scotland and even Israel.

The Bundesliga has two top scorers, both with five goals after six rounds: the German Niclas Füllkrug, 29, from Werder Bremen, and Sheraldo Becker, 27, from Union Berlin, a Surinamese born in the Netherlands.

Füllkrug has never had a chance to play for Germany’s adult national team, and coach Hansi Flick is unlikely to call him now.

Becker plays for an unimpressive team (Suriname), which has never qualified for a World Cup.

In Portugal, Simon Banza, 26, scored five goals in six matches for Braga this season, which has been the fourth force in the league for some time, behind the trio Benfica-Porto-Sporting.

He has not had a chance in the France national team until today and he will hardly have, since the current world champion has renowned athletes (Benzema, Griezmann, Giroud, Mbappé, Coman), all in top-tier clubs, as options for the attack.

And there are the cases of Brazil and Argentina, with Argentine goal scorers who should not be at the World Cup in the Middle East.

Germán Cano, 34, has been giving Fluminense fans a lot of joy. With 15 goals in 26 games, he appears at the top of the Brazilian Championship’s top scorers. In the Copa do Brasil, he scored another five goals (in eight matches). But he is not in coach Lionel Scaloni’s plans.

Mateo Retegui is another one who so far has not had a chance in the selection that has superstar Messi and the famous Di María, Lautaro Martínez and Dybala. The 23-year-old player who defends Tigre has scored 13 goals in 19 matches in the Argentine Championship.

Mentioned the certain or probable absences of men-goals in the Cup, there are two athletes who lead the artillery of important national championships that, barring injuries, have a guaranteed place in Qatar.

Are they:

• Neymar (PSG), 30, eight goals in seven matches for Frances, who is the biggest star of the Brazilian team; and
• Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona), 34, six goals in five games in Espanyol, current FIFA world’s best and “the” hope of Poland in the World Cup.

Finally, the top scorer today in the Dutch Championship is Cody Gakpo (PSV), 23, seven goals in six matches.

It is expected that he will be called up to defend the Netherlands in the Cup, but the strong competition from more experienced players (Depay, Berghuis, Bergwijn, Janssen, Weghorst) prevents his presence from being a certainty.