Former Glasgow Celtic, River Plate, Rapid Vienna, Sporting CP and Atletico Mineiro stars scored more regularly than current greats Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo aren’t the most prolific footballers of all-time
Since the dawn of the beautiful game, goal scoring has been the most sought after attribute in a player. Ultimately, the aim of football is to outscore your opponents. As such, the most prolific goal scorers of any era are inevitably hot property. All of the players in this seven have averaged a goal a game or better, an incredible record to maintain over a single season, never mind over an entire career.
This is a list of the seven most prolific strikers in the history of football. That is to say, the players with the highest goals per game ratios. Entire goals tally is irrelevant here, this list is based entirely on how many goals each player has averaged per game over the course of their career. Another requirement of this list is that it only accounts for players who played in a countries top flight, as there is bound to be someone in the Romanian seventh tier or English Sunday League who has averaged a hat-trick a game, but to include such players would make the list a little ridiculous.
Of course, some will argue that the Premier League is stronger than the Portuguese Primeira Liga and there is some truth in that, but all of the players on this played in a top division or divisions and all but one represented their country. To give some perspective of the goal scoring records in this list, Cristiano Ronaldo has a record of a goal every 0.73 games, whilst Lionel Messi has an even more impressive record of a goal every 0.86 games, but neither make the top seven of all-time.
As some of these players go back a good few years, unfortunately our image partners Getty have very little in their database on any of them, so the images may be of people with the same first name as the player in question… Here are seven footballers who were more prolific than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo:
7. Jimmy McGrory
McGrory spent almost his entire career at Celtic
With a record of 408 goals in 408 games, Jimmy McGrory averaged exactly 1 goal a game, which is the best goals per game ratio of any player in the history of top flight British football. McGrory spent almost his entire career at Celtic, with the exception of a single season on-loan at Clydebank, where he scored 13 goals. He is Celtic’s all-time top scorer as well as the top scorer in the history of the Scottish Premiership.
Despite standing at only 5’6″, McGrory scored a staggering number of headers, earning him the nickname of the “Human Torpedo” among the Celtic faithful. McGrory only played seven games for Scotland but still managed to score six goals.
6. Bernabe Ferreyra
When Argentine giants River Plate signed Bernabe Ferreyra from Tigres in 1932, the centre-forward more than doubled the world record transfer fee, and remained as the most expensive player in history for 17 years, the longest anyone has ever held that title for. He scored 45 goals in 43 games for Tigres and 187 goals in 185 games for River Plate, giving him an overall career average of 1.01 goals per game, although he surprisingly only won four caps for Argentina, failing to score for his country.
5. Franz Binder
Franz Binder was a one-club man at Rapid Vienna
A one-club man, Franz Binder played for more countries than clubs, as he turned out for both Austria and Germany at international level. He spent his entire 19-year career at Rapid Vienna, where he won four league titles and was named the division’s top scorer on three occasions. He averaged near enough a goal a game for both Austria and Germany, and bettered that at club level. Binder claims to have scored 1,006 goals in 756 games which would give him an average of a goal every 1.33 matches but FIFA officially recognise the Austrian as having scored 267 goals in 242 games, an average of 1.1 goals per game.
4. Imre Schlosser
Whilst Hungarian greats Ferenc Puskas and Sandor Kocsis just miss out on this top seven, Imre Schlosser does not. The highest scoring player in the history of the Hungarian league to this day, Schlosser is recognised as having scored 417 goals in 320 games, making him the sixth highest scoring player in the history of club football. Schlosser also scored 59 goals in 68 games for Hungary. He won the Hungarian league an astonishing 13 times, where he was the division’s top scorer on seven occasions as well as Europe’s top scorer four times. His overall goal scoring average stands at 1.3 goals per game.
3. Josef Bican
With 607 goals in 406 games, Josef Bican has an average of 1.49 goals per game. He represented Austria, Czechoslovakia and Bohemia & Moravia at international level, where he maintained his stunning goal scoring record. Bican turned out for eight club sides in total, although he played the bulk of his football, and his best years, at Slavia Prague. In his 217 games for Slavia Prague between 1937 and 1948 he scored an almighty 395 goals, an even more impressive average of 1.82 goals per game.
2. Fernando Peyroteo
Often considered the most prolific centre-forward of all-time, Fernando Peyroteo scored a grand total of 544 goals in 334 games for Sporting in Portugal, the only team he ever played for, giving him a career average of 1.62 goals per game. In his first season, aged 19, Peyroteo scored 34 goals in 14 games. In his 12 years at Sporting, the club won five league titles, five domestic cups and the first ever Portuguese Super Cup against Benfica.
Peyroteo made 20 appearances for Portugal and netted 14 times. He once scored nine goals in a single game for Sporting as well as bagging eight in another game, contributing to his outrageous goal average over the course of his career. Born in Angola, Peyroteo later returned to Portugal to manage the national team where he gave Eusebio his first start, paving the way for the next great Portuguese goal scorer.
1. Mario de Castro
Mario de Castro scored an incredible 195 goals in 100 games
It’s that man again… Subscribers to HITC Sevens will be familiar with Mario de Castro, the Brazilian great having cropped up a few times even in the young history of HITC Sevens. A prolific pre-war goal-getter whose career spanned just five years, de Castro scored a total of 195 goals in 100 games, an average of 1.95 goals per game. It’s an extraordinary record and one which will most likely never be beaten. De Castro’s career was so brief due to starting late as his mother didn’t approve of him playing football, and ending very early, after an Atletico Mineiro director shot an opposition fan, leading an outraged de Castro to retire at 26.
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