The top 10 goalscorers in football history

Cameron Smith

• 13 Nov 2025 03:01 CST
• 3 min read

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There have been some world-class goalscorers throughout football history, with many of the sport’s greatest ever players consistently putting the ball in the back of the net during their careers.

While Pele holds the Guinness World Record for the most career goals scored, many of his strikes came during club friendly or exhibition matches and therefore do not count in official rankings.

Below, FootballTransfers runs through the most prolific goalscorers of all-time.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the all-time record goalscorer in football history with 953 goals for club and country (excluding club friendlies).

The Portugal legend has won five Ballon d’Ors during his illustrious career, while no player in history has scored more goals for Real Madrid (450). In addition, he scored five times for Sporting CP, 145 times for Manchester United and 101 times for Juventus.

Furthermore, Ronaldo currently has 109 Al-Nassr goals to his name and 143 strikes for his nation Portugal.

In second place is Lionel Messi. He has scored 894 goals for club and country, with the vast majority of his goals coming for Barcelona.

The Argentina icon netted 672 times during his time at Camp Nou, while he found the back of the net on 32 occasions across a two-year spell with Paris Saint-Germain. He currently has 76 goals for Inter Miami and 114 goals for Argentina.

The third-highest goalscorer in football history is Brazil legend Pele. The iconic forward scored 762 official goals during his career, with the bulk of those coming for Santos.

Romario is in fourth place with a total of 756 career goals. He played for 10 different clubs during his career, including PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona, while he netted 55 times in just 70 caps for Brazil.

Current Barcelona forward Robert Lewandowski is in fifth-place, with 733 goals to date.

Real Madrid and Hungary icon Ferenc Puskas has scored the sixth-highest number of goals in football history, netting 725 times across a 23-year professional career, while Josef Bican scored 722 goals in seventh.

Northern Ireland's Jimmy Jones scored 639 career goals to be placed in eighth.

Gerd Muller (634 goals) and Joe Bambrick (626) round out the top 10, as per the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History & Statistics).