The 5 active players with the most goals in football history: Ronaldo, Messi…
Former Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid stars are among the five active players with the most goals in football history.
Scoring goals is the hardest thing to do in football, but the players on this list have managed to hit the back of the net with ease throughout their careers.
As of writing, these are the five active players with the most goals in football history.
5. Karim Benzema – 508 goals
The Frenchman left Real Madrid in 2023 as the club’s second-all-time top goalscorer with 354 strikes. Amazingly, he only won one La Liga Golden Boot during his entire 14-year stint in Spain.
While his scoring numbers rank him alongside some of the greatest goalscorers of all time, Benzema brought a lot more to the table than just goals.
His link-up play was second to none and the partnership he formed with Cristiano Ronaldo is still spoken about to this day.
Impressively, he had his best-ever scoring season at the age of 34 as he scored 44 goals in the 2021-22 campaign which earned him the Ballon d’Or.
Aged 36, he’s now sticking them away in Saudi Arabia for Al-Ittihad and he’ll surely have his eyes set on the 600-goal tally before he hangs up his boots.
4. Luis Suarez – 578 goals
Arguably, the best striker of his generation. During his peak, Suarez was capable of scoring almost any type of goal.
Indeed, throughout his entire career, he’s been a consistent goalscorer with pretty much every club that he’s played for.
He had his most prolific spell with Barcelona where he scored 198 goals in 283 games, but his stints with Ajax and Liverpool in particular shouldn’t be overlooked.
His best-ever scoring campaign came in his second season with Barcelona as he bagged 59 goals across all competitions and won the European Golden Shoe in the process.
Now aged 37, he’s still scoring goals on the regular in MLS. Since joining Inter Miami, he’s averaged a goal every 110 minutes which is some effort.
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3. Robert Lewandowski – 685 goals
Lewandowski’s consistency over the years is astonishing and it’s a testament to his longevity that he’s the only player on this list who’s still playing at the highest level today.
Over the last 13 years, the Polish forward has averaged 38 goals per season at club level which is an astonishing return.
Having previously scored over 100 goals for Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, he’ll surely be focused on doing the same at Barcelona. As of writing, he only needs 32 more goals to hit that landmark in Spain.
He seems to thrive when playing under Hansi Flick too. During his two stints under the German boss, Lewandowski has scored 92 goals in 81 games and averages a strike every 75.6 minutes.
2. Lionel Messi – 843 goals
Still scoring goals for fun at the ripe old age of 37, Messi might have completed football but he’s still got a few more years of magic left in his boots yet.
For club and country, he’s scored an incredible 843 goals up until this point while also providing 375 assists in that time too.
Messi also has the most prolific individual season of anyone on this entire list as he scored 73 goals for Barcelona during the 2011–12 campaign alone.
“For me, I’ve said many times, he’s the best,” Pep Guardiola said when describing Messi in 2022.
“It’s difficult to understand that a player can appear and compete what he has done in the last 50 or 70 years.”
It’s incredibly unlikely that we’ll see another player of Messi’s calibre in our lifetime, although he has been pipped to the top spot on this list.
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1. Cristiano Ronaldo – 904 goals
The amazing thing about Ronaldo is that he’s become even more prolific with age. Since turning 30 in February 2015, he’s scored 441 goals in 521 appearances which is incredible in itself.
He’s made it no secret that he wants to score 1000 career goals before reciting and with that rate he’s scoring at Al-Nassr, his 1000th goal will surely only be around the corner.
“I want to reach 1,000 goals,” Ronaldo said on his YouTube channel. “If I don’t have any injuries, this for me is the most important [thing]. I want that.”