15 Best Strikers in World Football [Ranked]

The hardest but most important part of football is to put the ball in the back of the net. This makes strikers the most valuable assets in the sport, as finding a number nine that can regularly find a way to score goals is a rare commodity.

Some teams find a way to spread their goals around the team, but it is perhaps no coincidence that the best teams tend to have the most prolific men leading the line. Obviously, playing for a better team gives the forward a better chance of having shots at goal, but ensuring the ball finds a way past the goalkeeper is a fine art. This article ranks the top 15 strikers in world football at the moment, with five of the centre-forwards operating in the Premier League.

Ranking factors

Football is all about opinions. There is often no right or wrong, as most parts of the beautiful game are subjective. Statistics can be used to back up claims, but nothing can be proved outright when ranking players in order. For the list below, the following factors have been used to help place each striker:

• Goals
• Assists
• Goals per game
• Importance to team
• Individual performances

1 Harry Kane

Club: Bayern Munich

Harry Kane is modern football’s answer to Wayne Rooney. Yes, he will absolutely score 20 goals a season. But he’ll also hit double figures in the assist rankings and spend about 30% of his time playing as a holding midfielder just to find that added space to work his magic.

The England captain became his nation’s top goalscorer in 2023, as well as reaching second place in the all-time Premier League scoring charts after scoring an incredible 213 times for Tottenham. His move to Bayern Munich has been a success to date as the 31-year-old continues to search for his first major honour in the sport.

2 Erling Haaland

Club: Manchester City

Erling Haaland has to go down as one of the best strikers in world football for one reason. He’s the best at putting the ball in the back of the opponent’s net. The Norwegian has set the world alight ever since he graced the Premier League with his presence. He smashed the goalscoring record for a single season, scoring 36 times in only 35 appearances during his debut campaign in the competition.

Haaland’s second season in the English top flight followed a similar pattern as he seemed to score every single week before being forced to spend time on the sidelines. He faced a lot of scrutiny from pundits for some of his performances in the second-half of the term, but he’s still one of the best goalscorers on the planet, and there’s no sign of that natural-born instinct letting up any time soon.

3 Robert Lewandowski

Club: Barcelona

Robert Lewandowski became the only man to manage Champions League hat-tricks at three different clubs when he rocketed three past Viktoria Plzen on his European debut for Barcelona. The prolific Pole just knows where the goal is and has proven the only challenger to the scoring power of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for the last decade, now surpassing them both season after season.

Heading towards his twilight years, the ex-Bayern Munich talisman finds himself falling slightly behind the young guns such as Mbappe and Haaland. But in the 24/25 campaign so far, he has rediscovered some of his youth, as he’s banged in 14 goals in 12 La Liga appearances, including a brace in El Clasico as La Blaugrana stormed to a six-point lead at the top.

4 Kylian Mbappe

Club: Real Madrid

Is Kylian Mbappe a striker? Debatable. Although he can pretty much play anywhere across the front line, he is included in the top 10, even if he is arguably more effective coming off one of the flanks. But back to the player, never have we witnessed such devastating explosiveness as when Mbappe is well and truly at it.

The Frenchman falls into the super rare category of being unstoppable at times and if he hasn’t claimed two or three Ballon d’Or awards by the time he’s hung up his boots, then it’ll be a shock. It is extremely harsh that the man who scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final just over 18 months ago has to settle for third place on the list, but that is more down to his effectiveness from the left wing. While he has gotten off to a slow start in Real Madrid’s famous white and gold, his star power will only rise again once he gets more comfy.

5 Viktor Gyokeres

Club: Sporting

The name on everybody’s lips, Viktor Gyokeres looked all set for a big-money move in the 2024 summer transfer window, but ultimately ended up spending another year in Portugal. The Sweden international only joined his current club, Sporting, the previous year from Championship outfit Coventry City, but his sparkling form while in the Portuguese league has caught the attention of some of the biggest clubs in Europe.

The likes of Arsenal and Chelsea were linked with the Swede in their search for a new number nine this summer. Given the consistency with which Gyokeres has shone at Sporting, he will no doubt be on their radar in future transfer windows. He currently sits high up in the race for the European Boot, having notched 16 goals and one assist in 10 Liga Portugal fixtures this term. Coming alive on the European stage, the enigmatic centre forward’s traits were on full show as he bagged a hat-trick of goals against a limp Manchester City – what a stupendous talent.

6 Lautaro Martinez

Club: Inter Milan

A typically tenacious Argentine centre-forward, Lautaro Martinez has been doing the business at Inter for several seasons now. During the 2022/23 campaign, he netted an impressive 21 league goals and was integral in the club’s title charge in which they narrowly lost out to city rivals AC Milan.

Now entering the prime of his career as a 27-year-old, Martinez looks to be accelerating his progression and has become one of the finest attackers on the planet. The Inter Milan forward won the Serie A Golden Boot last season with a significant margin between himself and the chasing pack. Martinez has refined his finishing ability in recent times and is now being recognised around the world, with Lionel Messi himself even naming the talisman as his heir for the Ballon d’Or.

7 Ollie Watkins

Aston Villa

Ollie Watkins’ rise to prominence since Unai Emery’s arrival at Villa Park has been astronomical, and arguably, hasn’t been spoken about enough. The England international has consistently been a reliable source of goals for Aston Villa in the past two years, emerging as one of the top attackers in the English top-flight after starting his career at Exeter City.

His talismanic form for the Villans was enough to fire the west Midlands club into the Champions League. It’s the first time the English side have ventured into the elite European competition in over four decades, and he’ll be hoping to improve further under his influential Spanish manager as he massively outperformed his xG last term.

8 Victor Boniface

Club: Bayer Leverkusen

Bayer Leverkusen were the surprise package of the most recent campaign as the Bundesliga side went a full domestic campaign without tasting defeat. One of the key factors behind Xabi Alonso’s success was the lethal nature of Victor Boniface.

The Nigerian striker fired in 14 league goals in the German top-flight despite missing a large portion of Leverkusen’s title-winning season. His incredible physicality and pace give opposing defenders multiple issues, and coupled with his quick thinking in front of the goal, Boniface is viewed as one of the best players in his position. This term, while his teammates haven’t matched the lofty standards of yesteryear, he’s still been plundering in goals, notching six in nine Bundesliga appearances so far.

9 Serhou Guirassy

Club: Borussia Dortmund

Much like Boniface, Serhou Guirassy shone last season in a team that wasn’t expected to reach the heights that they did. In the 2023/24 campaign, VfB Stuttgart played their best season ever based on the number and rate of victories. They remained in 3rd place of the Bundesliga for the majority of the term, behind only Leverkusen and Bayern, until they surpassed Bayern Munich on the final matchday to finish as Bundesliga runners-up. It was the club’s best performance since winning the league in 2007.

Much of this success can be attributed to Guirassy. And while his former team now sits six places lower than last season, his well-earned transfer to Borussia Dortmund has made a noticeable impact on Stuttgart. Meanwhile, the Guinean striker continues to excel, netting three goals across as many Champions League matches as Dortmund reclaims its place among Europe’s elite clubs.

10 Victor Osimhen

Club: Galatasary (on loan from Napoli)

Victor Osimhen’s potential has been well-known since he joined Lille in 2019, but it wasn’t until 2022 that the world truly saw the full extent of the relentless Nigerian’s talent. Standing tall, with speed, aerial dominance, and clinical finishing, Osimhen has scored nearly every type of goal imaginable throughout his Napoli career, leading them to the Serie A title in 2023 with 26 goals in 32 league matches.

Although a highly publicised dispute with the club over the summer has temporarily slowed his momentum, a move to one of Europe’s elite teams still seems inevitable for the 25-year-old in the near future, as he settles for temporary accomodation over at Galatasary.

11 Cristiano Ronaldo

Club: Al-Nassr

There was once a point in time when the greatest goalscorer of all time would be the name at the very top of this list, with no real competition for his crown. In 2024, however, Cristiano Ronaldo finds himself plying his trade in the Saudi Pro League, which is undeniably lower in quality than the top European leagues.

The Portuguese superstar is the biggest fish in the small pond that is the emerging division. Ronaldo scored more goals than any other player in 2023, hitting the back of the net 54 times. As already mentioned, the lack of quality in the league he plays in has to factor against the Real Madrid and Manchester United icon, but 2024 has still been a successful year for the 39-year-old.

12 Omar Marmoush

Club: Eintracht Frankfurt

Having been reportedly scouted by Liverpool’s first-rate recruitment team, mooted as the heir to Mo Salah’s golden throne, is enough of a compliment itself. Omar Marmoush is the next big thing in Egypt, and while he currently resides in the somewhat quietened facade of Eintracht Frankfurt, it won’t be long before Europe’s juggernaut clubs stop sniffing and turn to raiding the Bundesliga club of their glorious, goalscoring asset.

The Cairo-born forward has lit up Germany this season. In nine league outings, he has ten goals and six assists to his name. In a country steeped in ancient history, Egypt could well be looking at their next saga, as Marmoush has seemingly come from nowhere to take the football world by storm.

13 Marcus Thuram

Club: Inter Milan

Inter Milan stormed to Serie A glory last term, and it’s no surprise with the array of attacking options they have at their disposal. Marcus Thuram may not have been the jewel in Inter’s crown as that mantle was claimed by Martinez, but his debut season at the San Siro was still an incredible success.

Joining on a free transfer from German outfit Borussia Monchengladbach, the Frenchman played a starring role as the men in black and blue reclaimed their league title with a Milan derby success against AC Milan. Thuram is one of the best forwards in Italy currently and is more than capable of playing through the middle or on the left wing.

14 Mateo Retegui

Club: Atalanta

If you haven’t yet heard the name ‘Mateo Retegui’, then you’re encouraged to get on the bandwagon – and fast. The Italian forward, who made the cross-country move from Genoa to reigning Europa League champions Atalanta over the summer, will very quickly become a household name in the boot-shaped country.

In 11 Serie A games so far in the 2024/25 campaign, he has notched as many goals, which sees him comfortably sit atop the goalscoring standings, ahead of Thuram and Dusan Vlahovic. The only real reason he’s not much further up in this one is because he’s yet to do it over a longer period of time. Give him an extra few months, and he’ll likely skyrocket into stardom.

15 Kai Havertz

Club: Arsenal

Kai Havertz wasn’t previously seen as a player who could be a top-class centre-forward until Mikel Arteta got his hands on the Germany international. The ex-Chelsea ace was caught in between being an attacking midfielder and a false nine.

Since joining Arsenal, he’s managed to force Gabriel Jesus out of the striker role at the Emirates due to his significantly better hold-up play and understanding of the role. He may never be a clinical goalscorer, in the same sense as many of the names on this list, but Havertz is currently operating at an extremely high level. No one would’ve predicted his name making it into these rankings even 12 months ago.

All statistics in this article are courtesy of Transfermarkt – correct as of 05/11/24