Top 10 highest goalscorers in football history

#8 Gerd Muller (634 goals)

Gerd Muller scored 10 goals in six matches in the 1970 FIFA World Cup

Gerd Muller was a generational talent who redefined the art of goal scoring. He was a fox in the box, and opposition defenders could never leave him unmarked. “Der Bomber” scored 634 goals for club and country.

He won the Ballon d’Or in 1970 for his marvelous performances for Bayern Munich and in the FIFA World Cup for West Germany. He scored 68 goals in just 62 appearances for West Germany, including 14 at FIFA World Cups.

Most goals at World Cup tournaments (Ronaldo), most goals in a calendar year (Messi), most goals in a Bundesliga season (Lewandowski), and most goals for Germany (Klose) are some of Muller’s long-standing records that were broken over the last two decades.

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#7 Jimmy Jones (647 goals)

Jimmy Jones is the record goalscorer in the Irish League

Jimmy Jones is the second Northern Ireland international on this list, the other being Joe Brambick. Jones plied his trade two decades after Brambick, but they shared a common trait of scoring goals for fun. Jones scored a total of 647 goals. Unlike most players on this list, he didn’t have a memorable international career.

Jones spent 11 years at Glenavon and earned legendary status by scoring over 500 goals for the Lurgan Blues. He won the Irish League and Irish Cup three times each and was a central figure in Glenavon’s most successful period. He is still the record goalscorer in the Irish League.

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#6 Josef Bican (720 goals)

Josef Bican is one of the forgotten serial goalscorers of football

Josef Bican’s goal tally is often a topic of hot debate. A few sources suggest that Bican scored over 1000 goals. However, only 720 of those came in official top-level games and are recognized by FIFA. The goal machine was the top scorer in his domestic league 12 times!

Bican was born in Vienna, which was then a part of Austria-Hungary. He has represented Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Bohemia and Moravia at the international level. His most fruitful years were spent at Slavia Prague, from whom he scored 535 times in 272 appearances.

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#5 Ferenc Puskas (729 goals)

Ferenc Puskas is considered as football's first international superstar

Having outscored Josef Bican by nine goals, Ferenc Puskas finds a place in the top five. Puskas was a terrific goal scorer and had one of the most dangerous left feet in the game's history. He most notably played for Budapest Honved, Real Madrid and Hungary, scoring 729 goals in the process.

One of Real Madrid’s greatest players of all time, Puskas formed a solid partnership with Alfredo di Stefano and won five La Liga titles and three European Cups. Despite being on top of the world during the early 1960s, he could never win the Ballon d’Or award.

FIFA honored the great striker by introducing the “FIFA Puskas Award” in 2009, which would be bestowed to the scorer of the most beautiful goal of the year. Puskas hung up his boots in 1966, with a goal-to-game ratio close to 1.