ROQUE SANTA CRUZ - THE RECORD
Roque Santa Cruz: 28 scoring years in career!
After scoring 2 goals for Libertad Asuncion in January, Roque Santa Cruz opened his tally in 2025. For the Paraguayan, demonstrating incredible longevity, this is already the 28th calendar year (since 1998) with top-level goals.
The 43-year-old forward, who already held the world record for most goalscoring years in a career, took it even further.
Tulio Maravilha and Sebastian Abreu share 2nd place in the historical ranking, having both scored in 26 different years in top-level matches.
Among the current players, behind Santa Cruz are Sunil Chhetri (25 scoring years) and Cristiano Ronaldo (24). Both of them also managed already to score in the new year.
Erwin Helmchen, who, like Santa Cruz, scored goals in 28 years, is not classified. His matches formally belonged to the first tier, but then structure of the season in Germany, with an extremely large number of teams competing for the championship and a multi-stage system, does not allow them to be equated to the top level.
| GOAL SCORERS | IN MOST | YEARS | ||
| Player | Nation | Years | Period | |
| 1 | Roque Santa Cruz | Paraguay | 28 | 1998-2025 |
| Erwin Helmchen | Germany | 28 | 1923-1950 | |
| 2 | Túlio Maravilha | Brazil | 26 | 1988-2013 |
| 3 | Sebastián Abreu | Uruguay | 26 | 1994-2017, 2019-2020 |
| 4 | Silvio Piola | Italy | 25 | 1930-1954 |
| 5 | Abe Lenstra | Netherlands | 25 | 1937-1961 |
| 6 | Zlatan Ibrahimović | Sweden | 25 | 1999-2023 |
| 7 | Sunil Chhetri | India | 25 | 2001-2025 |
| 8 | Arthur Friedenreich | Brazil | 24 | 1911-1934 |
| 9 | Josef Bican | Austria, BM, CS | 24 | 1931-1948, 1950-1955 |
| 10 | José Manuel Moreno | Argentina | 24 | 1935-1957, 1961 |
| 11 | Max Morlock | Germany | 24 | 1941-1964 |
| 12 | Glenn Ferguson | Nothern Ireland | 24 | 1988-2011 |
| 13 | Francesco Totti | Italy | 24 | 1994-2017 |
| 14 | Claudio Pizarro | Peru | 24 | 1996-2019 |
| 15 | Ricardo Oliveira | Brazil | 24 | 2000-2023 |
| 16 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 24 | 2002-2025 |