The top 10 goalscorers in Europe in the 2020s: Top four split by one, Salah 5th…
Which players have scored the most goals in Europe’s top five leagues in the 2020s?
The 2010s were dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but neither are playing in Europe anymore and didn’t get enough goals before they left to stay in the top 10 scorers of the decade.
There are plenty of familiar names in the current top 10 though, with the four leading scorers separated by just one goal.
Here are the 10 players (11 at the moment due to a tie for 10th) with the most goals across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 since the turn of the decade.
=10. Ante Budimir – 89
Arguably the least household name here, Budimir plays for Osasuna and has only ever made it to the play-off rounds of a European competition (the 2023-24 Conference League).
But the 36-cap, six-goal Croatia international has showcased his reliability in La Liga over the past few seasons, hitting double figures in 2020-21, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26.
Only Kylian Mbappe and Robert Lewandowski – spoiler alert, but those are two names you’ll be seeing again later – outscored Budimir in La Liga last season. This time around, only Mbappe and the relegated Mallorca frontman Vedat Muriqi scored more.
Now 34, Budimir might not have too much time left at the top level, but is under contract with Osasuna for another year.
=10. Dusan Vlahovic – 89
Vlahovic has been playing in Serie A for all of the 2020s so far, first with Fiorentina and then with Juventus from January 2022 onwards.
The Serbian striker scored 21 goals for Fiorentina in the 2020-21 Serie A season, but has never broken the 20-goal barrier in a single campaign for his current club.
Nevertheless, Vlahovic has nearly a half-century of league goals to his name for Juventus, where his contract expires in June.
9. Ollie Watkins – 91
Watkins has become one of the Premier League’s most consistent strikers since stepping up from the Championship to join Aston Villa in 2020.
His six top-flight seasons have included double figures of goals every time. In the process, he has become Villa’s record Premier League goalscorer.
8. Jonathan David – 93
After emerging in European football with a prolific spell at Gent, David joined Lille in the summer of 2020.
Over the next five seasons in Ligue 1, 87 goals by the Canada international followed.
He has found things a bit tougher in Serie A since joining Juventus last year, only scoring six times from 34 league outings so far.
7. Serhou Guirassy – 101
Now 30 years old, Guirassy has played exclusively in France and Germany during his career so far.
He began the 2020s in Ligue 1 with Amiens, but suffered relegation at the end of the 2019-20 season before moving back into the top flight with Rennes.
Whilst with Rennes, he added another 19 Ligue 1 goals to his five from the second half of 2019-20.
A move to Germany with Stuttgart followed in 2022, leading to 39 Bundesliga goals in two years. He came one shy of reaching the same amount from his first two seasons with Borussia Dortmund.
6. Lautaro Martinez – 118
Martinez has been with Inter Milan since the summer of 2018, which means his debut season in Serie A was the only one that didn’t span into any of the 2020s.
It was also the only one in which he has failed to hit double figures of goals. The Argentine striker even enjoyed three consecutive seasons with 20+ goals between 2021-22 and 2023-24, ranking as Serie A’s top scorer for the latter.
Martinez has often played as part of a strike partnership at Inter, but his longevity enables him to outrank colleagues past and present like Romelu Lukaku, Edin Dzeko and Marcus Thuram for goals since the start of the decade.
5. Mohamed Salah – 128
Salah is set to leave Liverpool this summer and if he goes to Saudi Arabia, it will be the end (for now) of his goal-getting in Europe.
He has been extraordinary in front of goal since joining Liverpool in 2017, being able to boast 128 Premier League goals in the 2020s alone.
During that time, he has claimed two Golden Boots, including from the 2024-25 season when Liverpool won the league.
He should be staying in this top 10 long after he leaves Liverpool thanks to the collection of goals he has already built up.
=2. Robert Lewandowski – 174
Lewandowski denied Erling Haaland the chance to win a Golden Boot in the Bundesliga while maintaining outlandish levels of form for Bayern Munich and is currently level with the City star for goals in Europe this decade.
For the past four years, Lewandowski has been firing them in for Barcelona, where he moved in 2022. More than 80 La Liga goals have followed.
Now at the age of 37, Lewandowski only scored 14 times in the league this season, but has proven wrong anyone who may have doubted his ability to keep scoring regularly at this stage of his career.
The winner of the European Golden Shoe in each of his last two seasons with Bayern, Lewandowski was La Liga’s top scorer in his first with Barcelona.
A new challenge beckons for him when he leaves the club this summer.
=2. Kylian Mbappe – 174
Mbappe will most likely be going toe to toe with Haaland over the next four years to finish in top spot.
By the time he left PSG in 2024, Mbappe had become the French club’s all-time record scorer. A move to Real Madrid followed and he went on to score a Pichichi-worthy 31 goals in his first La Liga season.
Mbappe finished with 25 to his name in his second – again being La Liga’s top scorer – which meant he was recently able to pass a half-century of La Liga goals. He will be hungry for more (and silverware) over the coming seasons.
=2. Erling Haaland – 174
Haaland is still behind Salah in the Premier League scoring chart for the 2020s, but his exploits in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund from the start of the decade place him above the Liverpool legend here.
Haaland entered Europe’s top five leagues by joining Dortmund in January 2020 and proceeded to score 62 Bundesliga goals from 67 games prior to his move to Manchester City.
The big Norwegian striker was in no mood to slow his scoring rate in England, setting a new Premier League record for most goals in a 38-game season at the first time of asking with 36 (from just 35 appearances).
Haaland shattered through the landmark of 100 Premier League goals during the 2025-26 season and at the age of 25, should still have plenty more goals up his sleeve in the years to come.
1. Harry Kane – 175
One goal ahead of Haaland, Mbappe and Lewandowski at the end of the 2025-26 season is Kane, who has 98 Bundesliga goals to his name from 94 games since joining Bayern Munich in 2023.
Before that, he enjoyed some prolific seasons towards the end of his time in the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur, including 30 in his last season.
The 32-year-old is approaching the final season of his contract with Bayern but is showing no signs of slowing down, even breaking the 60-goal barrier in all competitions this season.
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