The top scorer across world football from every year since 2010: Messi, Ronaldo…
Former Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid stars feature in this list of the top scorers across world football from every year since 2010.
Scoring goals is the aim of the game and we’ve been lucky enough to witness some of the world’s greatest ever strikers over the last 14 years.
We’ve rounded them all up and have found the top scorer from world football from every year since 2010. For the purposes of this article, only club goals have been counted.
2010 – Lionel Messi (58 goals)
This was quite the year for both Messi and Barcelona.
The diminutive Argentine got his hands on four trophies in 2010 and he scored a bucketful of goals along the way.
Averaging a goal every 77 for Barcelona, Messi was an absolute machine back in 2010.
2011 – Aleksandrs Cekulajevs (56 goals)
Having scored one more goal than Messi managed in 2011, Cekulajevs sneaks the award for the top goalscorer of 2011.
The Latvian forward was on fire back then as he bagged 56 goals in just 43 appearances. Playing for Estonian side JK Narva Trans, he was scoring pretty much every week.
2012 – Lionel Messi (79 goals)
The greatest goalscoring season we have ever seen. Messi was an absolute daemon back in 2012 and we can’t see anyone surpassing this scoring tally any time soon.
When including the goals he scored for Argentina that year, he bagged a whopping 91 goals for club and country. Simply ridiculous.
2013 – Cristiano Ronaldo (59 goals)
This was when Ronaldo entered his goalscoring peak at Real Madrid. He scored an impressive 59 goals at club level in 2013 – the best tally he has ever managed.
2014 – Cristiano Ronaldo (56 goals)
He was also in fine scoring form the following year as he managed to bag an impressive 56 goals throughout the calendar year for Real Madrid.
Eight of those goals came in the Champions League knockout rounds as CR7 played a key role in Carlo Ancelotti’s side lifting the prestigious prize.
2015 – Cristiano Ronaldo (54 goals)
That’s right, Ronaldo finished as the top scorer across world football for a third consecutive year.
Real Madrid themselves didn’t have the most successful of years, but Ronaldo still managed to come out on top when it comes to scoring.
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2016 – Lionel Messi (51 goals)
After being kept off the top spot by Ronaldo for three years, Messi managed to regain his crown in 2016 by scoring an impressive 51 goals.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic came agonisingly close to beating Messi that year, but the Swedish forward ended 2016 with a tally of 50 goals.
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2017 – Lionel Messi & Edinson Cavani (50 goals)
Both Messi and Cavani managed to score an impressive 50 goals throughout 2017.
Technically, Cavani was slightly more prolific than Messi that year as he boasted a slightly better minute-per-goal ratio.
Harry Kane almost made the cut for this list in 2017, but the former Tottenham star just missed out with a total of 49 goals throughout the year.
2018 – Baghdad Bounedjah (52 goals)
The likes of Messi and Ronaldo both scored more than 40 goals in 2018, but neither of them managed to match Bounedjah’s output that year.
Quite incredibly, the Algerian forward averaged a goal every 52 minutes while playing for Qatari side Al-Sadd in 2018.
2019 – Abderrazak Hamdallah (54 goals)
Playing for Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League, Hamdallah was a cut above the competition back in 2019 as he bagged 54 goals across all competitions. That’s six more goals than anyone else managed in 2019.
2020 – Robert Lewandowski (45 goals)
During a year that was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lewandowski still managed to score an impressive 45 goals.
Bayern Munich managed to win the treble that year and everything that Lewandowski seemed to touch turned into goals.
2021 – Robert Lewandowski (58 goals)
The Polish forward followed up his impressive tally in 2020 by scoring even more goals during the following year.
Erling Haaland was his closest competition in 2021 and the Norwegian forward ended the year 15 goals shy of Lewandowski’s tally.
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2022 – Bergson (46 goals)
Kylian Mbappe was the top goalscorer in Europe in 2022 with 44 goals, but Brazilian forward Bergson managed to outscore him on the world stage.
Playing for Johor Darul Ta’zim in the Malaysia Super League, Bergson bagged 46 goals in just 36 appearances in 2022.
2023 – Cristiano Ronaldo & Erling Haaland (44 goals)
At club level, there wasn’t much to separate Ronaldo and Haaland throughout 2023 as they both bagged 44 goals for Al-Nassr and Manchester City respectively.
While Haaland’s tally is perhaps more impressive as he’s been doing it at a higher level, Ronaldo has to be respected for still sticking them away with ease in his late thirties.
2024 – Martin Cauteruccio (30 goals so far)
As of writing, Cauteruccio is the top scorer of 2024 so far with 30 goals. The Sporting Cristal forward is currently averaging a goal every 49 minutes which is some going considering he’s 37 years old.
Sporting forward Viktor Gyokeres isn’t far behind that tally with 25 goals as of writing.