From the early 1900s to the current day, this list of players with the most career goals for one club spans football's history. In today's game, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi score at an incredible rate, yet there have been players in the past who scored at even higher rates. According to the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation, 51 players in top-level football have scored 500 or more goals over their careers (RSSSF).
While there are players rocking the list of highest goals, but to score for the same team for long requires loyalty. To stay with your club for a long time and score a lot of goals helping them in lifting various titles. Here is a look at the game's goal-scoring titans who are the all-time leading goal scorers for one club.
10. Cristiano Ronaldo - 450 goals in 438 games for Real Madrid
Ronaldo is only the second active player on this list due to the tremendous number of goals he scored for Real Madrid. This is despite the fact that, in comparison to other players on this list, the Portugal captain spent only nine seasons in Madrid. This further demonstrates how dangerous Ronaldo was at the Bernabeu. Ronaldo never went below 40 goals in a season after scoring 35 in his debut season for Los Blancos (2009-10) and managed back-to-back 55-goal seasons in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
Also Read Cristiano Ronaldo Net Worth
9. Eusebio - 473 goals in 440 games for Benfica
Eusebio, another Portuguese player on this list, was a key figure in the Portuguese national team's glory years, spending 15 seasons at the Estadio da Luz between 1960 and 1975, winning the league title 11 times and a European Cup final victory over Real Madrid in 1962. During that period, Eusebio also won the European Golden Shoe twice as the continent's top goal scorer. Eusebio led his national team to a third-place finish in the 1966 World Cup, scoring nine goals (four against North Korea) and receiving the Bronze Ball trophy. In 1965, he won the Ballon d'Or award for European footballer of the year, and he was runner-up in 1962 and 1966.
8. Uwe Seeler - 507 goals in 587 games for Hamburg
A one-club man, Uwe Seeler was a prolific goalscorer for Hamburger SV and also made 72 appearances for the West German national team. Uwe made his first team debut in 1954, at just under 18, in a DFB-Pokal match, scoring four goals in an 8–2 triumph over Holstein Kiel. In 1960, he and his club won the German title, and in 1963, they won the DFB-Pokal. In 1963–64, he was the leading scorer in the first Bundesliga season, and he was named German Footballer of the Year in 1960, 1964, and 1970. During the 1960–61 season, Seeler guided Hamburg to the European Cup semi-finals, where they just missed out on a final versus Benfica, losing in a play-off match to Barcelona. During the 1967–68 season, Seeler also helped Hamburg reach the European Cup Winners' Cup final, where he finished as the competition's top scorer, only to lose to AC Milan.
7. Jimmy Jones - 517 goals in 419 games for Glenavon
Jones holds the record for the most goals scored in a season in his nearly 20-year career (74). With 647 goals, he is the all-time highest scorer in Irish League football history. He was instrumental in propelling the club to the most prosperous moment in its history. Messi came within one goal of matching Jones' record in 2011-12, but the Barcelona star fell one goal short after finishing the season with 73 goals.
6. Jimmy McGrory - 522 goals in 501 games for Celtic
With 550 goals in competitive first-team games at club and international level, Celtic legend Jimmy is the all-time leading goalscorer in top-flight British football. McGrory played for Celtic for 15 years between 1922 and 1937 before returning to manage the Scottish club after the Second World War, a position he held for over two decades. Despite his diminutive stature, he was well-known for his ability from headers. His signature was a virtually horizontal bullet header, which he did and scored from on a regular basis, earning him the nicknames "Human Torpedo" and "Mermaid."
5. Josef Bican - 534 goals in 274 games for Slavia Prague
Bican departed Vienna in 1937 to join the Czech team Slavia Prague. During World War II, he played for Slavia, when many of his football competitors were fighting. Bican is not just one of the game's best goal scorers, but he is also one of a very tiny handful of footballers to have played for three separate countries, having earned caps for Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Bohemia & Moravia. During his eight seasons with the Czechs, he had an average strike rate of 1.95 goals per game and scored seven goals three times in his career.
4. Fernando Peyroteo - 544 goals in 334 games for Sporting Lisbon
Fernando completed his entire professional career at Sporting, scoring 544 goals in all competitions, earning 11 major trophies, and was named his country's top scorer six times. Peyroteo scored 40 goals in the 1948–49 season as Sporting won their third league title in a row. He retired soon after, at the age of 31, with the proceeds from the testimonial match versus Atlético Madrid being used to pay off debts incurred via the operation of a sportswear shop he had started.
3. Gerd Muller - 564 goals in 605 games for Bayern Munich
Gerd Muller, widely recognised as one of the best goal scorers in football history, scored 735 goals for club and country during his career. Müller, dubbed 'Bomber der Nation,' was named European Footballer of the Year in 1970. Following a good season at Bayern Munich, he scored ten goals for West Germany in the 1970 World Cup, earning him the Golden Boot as top scorers. He was the leading goalscorer at the 1972 UEFA Euros. He scored four goals at the 1974 World Cup, including the game-winning goal in the final match, two years later. Muller averaged at least one goal per game throughout the majority of his 14 seasons at Bayern, most notably setting the record for most goals in a calendar year (85) in 1972, which stood for 40 years before being beaten in 2012 by Lionel Messi.
2. Pele - 643 goals in 659 games for Santos
Pele, widely regarded as one of the greatest, if not the best, players of all time, spent practically his entire career at his boyhood club Santos. According to official statistics, Pele scored 643 goals in only 656 appearances, albeit there are numerous differences in his actual goalscoring records. Pele had already finished the season as the best goal scorer in the Brazilian championship at the age of 16, and the goals kept coming. At the age of 33, he left Santos to join the New York Cosmos.
More about Pele : When Pele led Brazil to their first-ever World Cup trophy
1. Lionel Messi - 672 goals in 778 games for Barcelona
Surprise, surprise!! Any list/record related to one club would be incomplete without Lionel Messi. There aren't many records left for Lionel Messi to break, and even if there are, the Argentine genius is only 33 years old, so he may still shatter them. Messi broke a long-standing record set by none other than the legendary Pele over half a century ago when he scored his 644th goal for Barcelona against Real Valladolid in December last year. He ended the 2020/21 season with 672 official goals for Barcelona. Messi appears to be in top form, and who knows how many more goals he will score before putting up his boots.
