The 10 players with the most goals across world football in 2025: Messi but no Ronaldo…
Lionel Messi may be playing his football away from the elite European spotlight these days, but he’s still among the top goalscorers across world football in 2025.
Big names from Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid are among the world-class superstars who have scored the most goals this year. But where does Messi rank among them?
Here are the 10 players who have scored the most goals (for club and country) across world football this calendar year.
10. Guilherme Bissoli – 32 goals
The fun thing about expanding the net for all of world football is that you can kick off this list with obscure cult heroes alongside undisputed world-class footballing royalty.
Never heard of Guilherme Bissoli? Pfft.
A product of Sao Paulo’s academy, the forward had an incredibly unremarkable career doing little of note for mid-tier clubs back home before he made the switch to Thailand last year.
He’s scored 70 goals in 90 appearances for Thai outfit Buriram United, including 32 in 2025 alone.
Bissoli shares a dressing room with ex-Cardiff ‘keeper Neil Etheridge, former Australia international Curtis Good and the wonderfully named, somehow-not-a-regen Juan Ibiza. Lovely stuff.
9. Jorge Rivera – 32 goals
Another name we’ll be incredibly impressed if you’ve heard of, Rivera plays as a right winger for Liga Puerto Rico outfit Metropolitan FA.
He’s scored 32 goals in just 28 appearances in 2025 so far, but – somehow – hasn’t been capped by Puerto Rico since 2018. Call him up.
8. Vangelis Pavlidis – 32 goals
Viktor Gyokeres got all the plaudits and a big-money move to Arsenal following his near goal-a-game exploits for Sporting last season, but it’s Benfica’s Pavlidis who is waving the flag for Portugal’s Primeira Liga in this top 10.
The striker’s 30-goal club tally in 2025 includes hat-tricks against Barcelona and Porto, plus six goals so far this season. He’s also scored two goals for Greece in 2025.
7. Serhou Guirassy – 33 goals
Borussia Dortmund’s track record of boasting exceptionally reliable No.9s continues, with Guirassy following in the footsteps of the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Erling Haaland and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
He’s scored 32 goals from 39 appearances for Dortmund in 2025, and notched a further one goal in Guinea’s ailing campaign to qualify for next summer’s World Cup.
We’ll note his name for our inevitable ‘best players not at the tournament’ XI.
6. Lionel Messi – 34 goals
Thirty-eight years of age and still featuring in these lists. Messi might not be playing at the elite level anymore, but some things never change.
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner enjoyed his best year yet with Inter Miami, having notched 32 goals from just 41 appearances at club level. Plus another two for Argentina for good measure.
If you were wondering, Messi’s eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo is on 30 goals in 2025 – 24 in 28 appearances for Al-Nassr alongside six goals for Portugal. Every chance he makes up that gap before the year’s out.
QUIZ: The Ultimate Lionel Messi Quiz: 30 tough questions to test your knowledge of the GOAT
5. Denis Bouanga – 35 goals
Guirassy isn’t actually the highest-scoring African of 2025 so far. Nor is Messi the top-scoring MLS player of the calendar year.
Inching ahead of both of them is Former Ligue 1 journeyman Bouanga, who has enjoyed a sensational year with LAFC.
The 30-year-old forward has 30 goals from just 42 appearances for the MLS outfit in all competitions, as well as five goals for Gabon on the international stage.
4. Erling Haaland – 37 goals
Back to his devastatingly lethal best at the start of this 2025-26 campaign, surprisingly enough Haaland would not have made this list were it purely down to goals scored at club level.
Manchester City’s main man has scored fewer club goals than the likes of Ivan Toney, Viktor Gyokeres, Ousmane Dembele and Victor Osimhen in 2025 but an unbeatable trump card of 10 international goals sees him shoot up to fourth place in the overall rankings.
Somehow even more prolific for Norway than he is for City, Haaland has scored in all six of his appearances on the international stage so far this calendar year.
He was on the scoresheet against Moldova, Israel, Italy, Finland and Estonia and then scored five, assisting two more, in an 11-1 mauling of Moldova.
3. Kevin Hernandez – 42 goals
A lesser-known name in amongst the superstars in the upper echelons of this list, Hernandez has been on fire for Puerto Rico Surf.
The striker has scored 18 goals in just 10 appearances in the Liga Puerto Rico Apertura so far this season, maintaining his high standards of 23 in 18 from the Clausura campaign earlier in the year.
Hernandez might’ve challenged for the top spot with a few international goals, but like the aforementioned Jorge Rivera, he hasn’t been capped by Puerto Rico for a few years. Tough competition.
2. Harry Kane – 44 goals
Arguably playing the very best football of his career right now, Kane has notched 18 goals and three assists from just 10 appearances for Bayern Munich in 2025-26 so far. That works out as a goal contribution every 39 minutes.
He was similarly prolific in the latter half of last season, firing Bayern back to the Bundesliga summit and lifting the first major trophy of his career as a result.
Alongside his 39 goals for Bayern, Kane has scored five goals from six outings for England in 2025. The captain’s form is music to the ears of Thomas Tuchel ahead of next summer’s World Cup.
1. Kylian Mbappe – 48 goals
The current holder of the European Golden Shoe, having won it for the first time in his career after his debut season with Real Madrid, Mbappe’s on track for even more goals in year two.
His first year in the Spanish capital didn’t quite go as he would’ve envisaged in terms of lifting silverware, but there can be no questioning his goalscoring prowess.
He’s scored 44 goals for Los Blancos and four goals for Les Bleus in 2025 so far.
The scary thing is that he’s only getting more prolific as time goes on, with 16 goals for club and country since the start of the season. He’s scored in all but one of his 12 appearances in 2025-26 so far.
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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the top 50 goalscorers across Europe’s major leagues since 2000?