THE HIGHEST SCORING DEFENDERS
Picture : Abderrahmane Hachoud is one of the Top Defender Goalscorers !
Highest scoring defenders year-wise in XXI Century
We present the list of defenders who scored most top-level goals in the world football in every single year of XXI Century.
Two players were the best in two occasions: Abderrahmane Hachoud (2008, 2011) and James Tavernier (2020, 2022).
At the equal number of goals, the tie-breaker is number of international goals (ICC + NT).
| WORLD BEST | SCORING | DEFENDERS | |||||||
| IN XXI CENTURY | YEARWISE | ||||||||
| Year | Player | Role | Club | Country | Goals | Total | |||
| NL | NC | ICC | NT | ||||||
| 2001 | Ian Harte | LB | Leeds (England) | Rep. of Ireland | 9 | 4 | 4 | 17 | |
| 2002 | Héctor Altamirano | RB | Santos Laguna | Mexico | 13 | 1 | 14 | ||
| 2003 | Murat Yakın | CB | Basel | Switzerland | 9 | 1 | 1 | 11 | |
| 2004 | Asier del Horno | LB | Athletic Bilbao | Spain | 6 | 3 | 1 | 10 | |
| 2005 | Marcus Tulio Tanaka | CB | Urawa Red Diamonds | Japan | 9 | 1 | 10 | ||
| 2006 | Daniel Majstorović | CB | Basel (Switzerland) | Sweden | 7 | 1 | 3 | 11 | |
| 2007 | Saber Ben Frej | RB | Etoile du Sahel | Tunisia | 9 | 3 | 12 | ||
| 2008 | Abderrahmane Hachoud | CB | Bordj Bou Arreridj | Algeria | 11 | 11 | |||
| 2009 | Naldo | CB | Werder (Germany) | Brazil | 5 | 2 | 6 | 13 | |
| 2010 | Andreas Granqvist | CB | Groningen (Netherlands) | Sweden | 12 | 2 | 14 | ||
| 2011 | Abderrahmane Hachoud | RB | Sétif | Algeria | 11 | 1 | 12 | ||
| 2012 | Igor Morozov | CB | Levadia | Estonia | 12 | 5 | 1 | 18 | |
| 2013 | Jersson Vásquez | LB | José Gálvez | Peru | 14 | 14 | |||
| 2014 | Ali Maâloul | LB | Sfaxien | Tunisia | 7 | 2 | 4 | 13 | |
| 2015 | Anderson Santamaría | CB | León de Huánuco | Peru | 11 | 2 | 13 | ||
| 2016 | Mohammad Iranpourian | RB | Tractor | Iran | 11 | 2 | 1 | 14 | |
| 2017 | Raúl Silva | CB | Marítimo, Braga (Portugal) | Brazil | 9 | 3 | 12 | ||
| 2018 | Sergio Ramos | CB | Real Madrid | Spain | 8 | 2 | 4 | 14 | |
| 2019 | Nicolás Sánchez | CB | Monterrey (Mexico) | Argentina | 11 | 1 | 5 | 17 | |
| 2020 | James Tavernier | RB | Rangers (Scotland) | England | 11 | 1 | 5 | 17 | |
| 2021 | Besnik Krasniqi | RB | Prishtina | Kosovo | 14 | 1 | 15 | ||
| 2022 | James Tavernier | RB | Rangers (Scotland) | England | 11 | 2 | 9 | 22 |
Abbreviatures:
NL – National League
NC – National Cups
ICC – International Club Competitions
NT – National Team