THE MOST NATIONAL TEAM HAT TRICKS
Players with most national team hat-tricks
Lionel Messi’s remarkable achievement in 2024 is equalling the world record on number of hat-tricks for national team.
Leo’s hat-trick in a World Cup qualifier vs Bolivia (6-0) on 16 October was his 10th for Argentina; thus he tied the world record established by Vivian Woodward more than a century ago and recently leveled also by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Woodward compiled his record playing for two English national teams existing parallel in that era (one of them for amateurs).
Here we publish an all-time ranking for players with most hat-tricks made in national team jersey.
Tie-breaker: fewer caps.
It is worth noting few others Messi’s feats from the mentioned game.
*He became the first ever player to achieve 3 hat-tricks (2 against Bolivia and 1 against Ecuador) in the history of the South American Qualifiers.
*He is 3rd player to score multiple hat-tricks against the same opponent in the South American Qualifiers, after Tostao (vs Venezuela) and Zico (vs Bolivia).
*He is the first player with 3 goals and 2 assists in the same South American qualifier since Joaquín Botero who produced on 1 April 2009 even more (3 goals and 3 assists) against ...Argentina (in the famous game that ended 6-1 for Bolivia).
*It was one of two Messi’s spectacle with 5+ goal contributions in 2024. He did the similar on 5 May for Inter Miami vs New York Red Bulls (6-2): 1 goal and 5 assists.
Never before Leo had more than 1 such performance within the same calendar year.
| MOST HAT-TRICKS | NATIONAL | TEAMS | ||||||||
| Player | Team(s) | Career | HT | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Caps | |
| 1 | Vivian Woodward | England, England Am. | 1903-1914 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 53 | ||
| 2 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 2005- | 10 | 9 | 1 | 191 | |||
| 3 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 2003- | 10 | 8 | 2 | 217 | |||
| 4 | Sven Rydell | Sweden | 1923-1932 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 43 | |||
| 5 | Ali Mabkhout | UAE | 2009- | 9 | 8 | 1 | 115 | |||
| 6 | Poul "Tist" Nielsen | Denmark | 1910-1925 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 38 | |
| 7 | Gerd Müller | Germany | 1966-1974 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 62 | |||
| 8 | Kunishige Kamamoto | Japan | 1964-1977 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 76 | |
| 9 | Ali Daei | Iran | 1993-2006 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 148 | ||
| 10 | Mohammed Ali Al-Biski | Libya | 1961-1970 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 44 | |
| 11 | Sándor Kocsis | Hungary | 1948-1956 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 68 | |||
| 12 | Chan Siu-ki | Hongkong | 2000-2017 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 70 | |
| 13 | Pelé | Brazil | 1957-1971 | 7 | 7 | 92 | ||||
| 14 | Jimmy Greaves | England | 1959-1967 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 57 | |||
| 15 | Godfrey Chitalu | Zambia | 1968-1980 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 111 | |||
| 16 | Robert Lewandowski | Poland | 2008- | 6 | 5 | 1 | 156 | |||
| 17 | Just Fontaine | France | 1953-1960 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 21 | |||
| 18 | Richard Hofmann | Germany | 1927-1933 | 5 | 5 | 25 | ||||
| 19 | Edmund Conen | Germany | 1934-1942 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 28 | |||
| 20 | Gunnar Nordahl | Sweden | 1942-1948 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 33 | ||
| 21 | Josef Bican | Austria, CS, BM | 1933-1949 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 35 | |||
| 22 | Edward Acquah | Ghana | 1956-1964 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 41 | |||
| 23 | Damian Mori | Australia | 1992-2002 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 45 | ||
| 24 | Jørgen Juve | Norway | 1928-1937 | 5 | 5 | 45 | ||||
| 25 | Hassan El-Shazly | Egypt | 1961-1974 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 62 | |||
| 26 | Vaughan Coveny | New Zealand | 1992-2006 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 64 | |||
| 27 | Imre Schlosser | Hungary | 1906-1927 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 68 | ||
| 28 | Romário | Brazil | 1987-2005 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 70 | |||
| 29 | Włodzimierz Lubański | Poland | 1963-1980 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 75 | ||
| 30 | Gary Lineker | England | 1984-1992 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 80 | |||
| 31 | Jassem Al-Houwaidi | Kuwait | 1992-2002 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 83 | ||
| 32 | Lê Công Vinh | Vietnam | 2004-2016 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 83 | |||
| 33 | Ferenc Puskás | Hungary, Spain | 1945-1962 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 89 | |||
| 34 | Ali Ashfaq | Maldives | 2003-2023 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 98 | ||
| 35 | Harry Kane | England | 2015- | 5 | 4 | 1 | 103 | |||
| 36 | Hussein Saeed | Iraq | 1976-1990 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 137 |