The top 10 football goalscorers of all time | OneFootball

Highlights

Football has produced some of the best athletes the world has ever seen over the years, but the players who capture the public imagination best tend to be those who are capable of scoring goal after goal on the biggest stage. Be it at World Cups, in the Champions League, the Premier League, or any other major competition, glory is so often reserved for those who step up and stick the ball in the back of the net when it matters most.

Soccer is a sport where fans have enjoyed countless world-class goal-scorers, but here at GIVEMESPORT, we want to know who has scored the most goals in football history. And so, we have put together a list of the 10 highest-scoring men's football players to ever grace the pitch, taking into account both domestic and international goals.

Our statistics have been taken from both the IFFHS and the MessivsRonaldo app (as of 2 January 2024) which keeps track of the ever-increasing goal tally for those two behemoths who are the only active players on the list.

10 Joe Bambrick

616 career goals between 1926-1943

An unfamiliar name features first on this list. Joe Bambrick scored goals at an alarming rate, managing 616 goals in official matches throughout his career. The Northern Irishman once scored 50 times in a single league campaign for Linfield, in 1930/31, and also played for Glentoran, Chelsea and Walsall.

Bambrick netted the only goal for the Blues in their 1-1 draw with Arsenal in October 1935, which just so happened to be the club's highest-ever attended match at Stamford Bridge with 82,905 watching on from the stands. On the international stage, he made just 11 appearances for the Ireland national football team (which selected players from the whole of Ireland until 1950) but scored 12 goals, including six in one match against Wales.

9 Eusébio

619 career goals between 1957-1978

The 'Black Panther', as Eusébio was otherwise known, played for nine clubs and scored a total of 619 goals across his career, but he is best remembered for petrifying defences in the red of Benfica. For the Eagles, he netted an astonishing 473 goals in just 440 games, helping the side to 11 Portuguese titles and the 1961/62 European Cup.

Eusébio also scored goals in Mozambique for Sporting Clube de Lourenço Marques, as well as in Mexico, the USA and for other clubs in Portugal. For his country, he scored 41 in 64 matches. His Golden Boot-winning display at the 1966 World Cup secured his side a third-place finish, which remains their best-ever finish in the competition. He also scooped the Ballon d'Or award in 1965.

8 Gerd Müller

634 career goals between 1964-1981

Gerd Müller may not have been the most technical or elegant centre-forward to grace the game, but he made being in the right place at the right time an art form, and that is shown by his remarkable 634 career goals. 'Der Bomber' is Bayern Munich's record goalscorer with 523 goals, and he leads the way in the Bundesliga with 365 strikes.

Only Miroslav Klose has scored more for Germany, and Müller is also third on the all-time list of World Cup marksmen. He saw out his career with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, scoring 38 times in 71 NASL outings and hung up his boots with four Bundesliga titles, four German Cups, three European Cups, a World Cup, a European Championship, and the 1970 Ballon d'Or under his belt. Quite the trophy cabinet.

7 Jimmy Jones

647 career goals between 1947-1964

Surprisingly, Jones is the second Northern Irishman to appear on this list with 647 career goals. He spent most of his career in his homeland and was close to unstoppable. His best spell came at Glenavon, where he topped the Irish League goalscoring charts in six separate seasons across an 11-year period. Jones remains the leading goalscorer in the history of the Irish League football.

He won a total of 17 trophies across his time with Belfast Celtic and Glenavon. Jones was also prolific in Wales and elsewhere in his homeland. At Belfast Celtic, he netted 27 goals in 19 matches before having his leg broken by a Linfield supporter during an encounter between the two sides. That incident kept Jones on the sidelines for 15 months after leg-saving surgery, making his feats even more remarkable.

6 Josef Bican

720 career goals between 1931-1955

Whether in Austria, his country of birth, or Czechoslovakia, his adopted homeland, defences found Josef Bican to be a constant menace. He remained prolific even during the Second World War when many of his football rivals were at war.

He did once claim that he had netted more than 5,000 times, which is a little fanciful but among Bican's undisputed achievements are his three seven-goal haul matches, his streak of strikes in 19 consecutive top-tier games and his five years back-to-back as the world's leading goalscorer – a record that still stands to this day. He also remains Slavia Prague's all-time leading scorer.

5 Ferenc Puskás

729 career goals between 1943-1966

To get an idea of how good Ferenc Puskás was, he once led Hungary to a 7-1 thrashing of England back in 1954. The attack-minded player was the star of the show that day, scoring two of his 729 official career goals in a stunning performance.

'The Galloping Major', as he was affectionately known, first earned prominence at Budapest Honvéd, where he was the Hungarian first division's top scorer on four occasions. Then in 1956, he joined arguably the first incarnation of Real Madrid's Galácticos and dominated Europe alongside the likes of Francisco Gento, Alfredo Di Stéfano and Raymond Kopa. During his time in the capital, he won five consecutive La Liga titles and three European Cups. Unsurprisingly, he is still Hungary's record goalscorer, and FIFA even named a trophy after him in 2009, with the scorer of each year's best goal receiving the Puskás Award.

755 career goals between 1985-2007

Ronaldo eventually became the face of Brazilian football in Europe, but Romário paved the way for his natural successor. The striker turned out for ten clubs, including PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona and Valencia, and netted an astonishing 755 goals across his career. Although it is with his first two clubs that he is best remembered.

A strong record for Vasco da Gama convinced Dutch side PSV to capture his services, and Romário repaid their faith, scoring almost a goal a game across five seasons. He helped PSV to three league titles and KNVB Cups in that time as well. He then fired Barcelona to the 1994 La Liga title and continued to strike a healthy goalscoring rate back in his homeland and across the globe later on in his career. Only Neymar, Pelé, and Ronaldo have scored more for Brazil than 'Baixinho' (The Little One).

3 Pelé

762 career goals between 1957-1977

The king of football, Pelé is still, for some, the greatest player ever to take to the field and boasted 762 goals throughout his glittering career. His heyday of the 1950s and 1960s, before records were meticulously kept, makes it challenging to keep track of all his goals – with many believing he actually scored over 1000 times in his career – but we do know he is Santos' record goal-scorer.

Twelve of his 77 Seleção strikes came at the World Cup, of which he won three – a record that is unlikely ever to be matched, never mind surpassed. Other than a short spell as the star attraction of the NASL with New York Cosmos, Pelé spent his whole career in his homeland, where he also won six Brazilian Serie A titles and two Copa Libertadores. The legendary striker held the world record for most goals scored for about 30 years until a new era dawned, which leads us to our final two on this list of football's greatest goal-scorers.

2 Lionel Messi

821 goals from 2004 to modern day

Two men have dominated the goalscoring charts for the bulk of the 21st century. The first of the duo on this list is Argentina maestro Lionel Messi with 821 career goals. 'El Pulga' (The Flea) has picked up a record six European Golden Shoes throughout his career, is Barcelona and La Liga's record goalscorer, while no other player in history has managed more than his 91 strikes in a calendar year, achieved in 2012.

He also leads the way in terms of goals for his country, and his performances have been recognised by eight Ballon d'Or wins. And to think all that would not have come to pass without growth hormone treatment, as his short stature as a child threatened to derail his future professional career. In 2022, Messi achieved the accolade he had long been waiting for when he won the World Cup for the first time in his career, netting seven goals in Qatar and picking up the Best Player award.

1 Cristiano Ronaldo

873 goals from 2002 to modern day

His rival Messi may have more Ballon d'Or awards, but Cristiano Ronaldo can console himself with his status as the most prolific goalscorer the planet has ever seen with an unrivalled 819. No player has ever scored as many goals for Real Madrid (450 strikes in 438 games), and he also leads the way for Portugal. In fact, Ronaldo's haul for his country is more than any other male player at international level.

He has found the back of the net a total of 873 times throughout his illustrious career and won three Premier League titles, five Champions League titles, and Euro 2016, to name just a few of his many trophies. Despite turning 38 in February, the former Juventus and Manchester United star has shown he still has much to give for both club and country, having scored more goals than anyone else in the calendar year of 2023, striking 52 times for Portugal and Al-Nassr