Foot Africa ranks highest African goal scorers, two Cameroon internationals at the top of the list.
Foot Africa ranks highest African goal scorers, two Cameroon internationals at the top of the list.
Egyptian media Foot Africa has put together a list of the highest five top African goal scorers of all time.
The list takes into consideration goals scored by the players in all competitions including African leagues.
5.Hossam Hassan(Egypt)
Appearances: 707
Goals: 321
Hossem Hassan is an Egyptian professional football coach and former player who played as a striker.
Other than two spells abroad in Switzerland and Greece, Cairo-born Hassan played mainly for hometown’s Al Ahly, for which he made his first-team debuts aged 18, playing his last match for the club sixteen years later.
He ranked first in the club in several categories and won a total of 25 titles with it, including 11 leagues; he was only one of two players ever to find the net in derbies for each team.
He also adds as Egypt’s all-time top scorer with 83 goals in 176 appearances.
4. Didier Drogba(Ivory Coast)
Appearances: 784
Goals: 362
Drogba is an Ivorian retired professional footballer who played as a striker. He is the all-time top scorer and former captain of the Ivory Coast national team. He is best known for his career at Chelsea, for whom he has scored more goals than any other foreign player and is currently the club’s fourth highest goal scorer of all time. Drogba was named in the Chelsea team of the 2010–2020 decade by Chelsea’s fans. He was named African Footballer of the Year twice, winning the accolade in 2006 and 2009.
Mostly recognized for his exploits in the English Premier league, Didier Drogba is regarded as arguably one of the best African footballers of all time. Unlike Hossem Hassan, Drogba spent all of his carreer in Europe. He started his career 21 years at Le Mans.
He also had spells at Guingamp before moving to Marseille where he started gaining the spotlight. He spent one season at Marseille where he scored 19 goals in all competitions, earning him a then club record £24million move to Chelsea.
At Chelsea, he reached the peak of his career. He spent 8 straight seasons at the London club before returning for another spell at the Club 2 years later. During his time at Chelsea, he won one Champions league title, four Premier league titles, four FA cup titles, three League cup titles and one community shield trophy.
Drogba also played for Clubs like Galasataray, Shanghai Shenhua in China and two MLS clubs Montreal Impact and Phoenix rising.
3-Godfrey Chitalu(Zambia)
Appearances: 621
Goals: 427
He was a Zambian footballer who played as a forward. He is widely regarded as the greatest Zambian player of all time as he holds his national team’s goalscoring record and was voted Zambian footballer of the year five times.
Godfrey Chitalu played all of his carreer in the Zambian league where he played for Kitwe United and Kabwe warriors. He is believe to have have scored 150+ goals for the two clubs he playe for.
The Football Association of Zambia claimed that Chitalu scored more than 100 goals in all competitions in 1972, more than Gerd Müller’s total in the same year and Lionel Messi’s total in 2012, both of which are often referred to by journalist as “world records”. The research was presented in the year 2012 after Lionel Messi broke the alleged world record of Gerd Müller. Nevertheless, a FIFA spokesman declared that an official FIFA world record had never existed as they did not keep track of domestic competitions.
Chitalu also holds the record for Africa’s highest international Gail scorer of all time with 79 goals for the Zambian team.
On 27 April 1993, the Zambia national team was travelling to Senegal for the first of their 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification games in the group stage. The team’s mode of transportation was a Zambian Air Force plane. After refuelling in Libreville, Gabon, the plane developed problems and plunged into the sea. Thirty people on board including Michael Mwape, the president of the FAZ, Chitalu and eighteen players died in the accident.
2-Samuel Eto’o(Cameroon)
Appearances: 842
Goals: 427
Samuel Eto’o is a Cameroonian football administrator and former player who is the current president of the Cameroonian Football Federation from 11 December 2021. In his prime, Eto’o was regarded by pundits as one of the best strikers in the world, and he is regarded as one of the greatest African players of all time, winning the African Player of the Year a record four times: in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2010, a record he holds alongside Yaya Toure who has also won the Award four times.
Samuel Eto’o had very decorative career where he played for 13 clubs during his long career.
A precocious talent, Eto’o moved to Real Madrid as a 16 year old. Due to competition in his position with more experienced players, he had several loan spells, before signing for Mallorca in 2000 where he scored 70 goals. His impressive form saw him join Barcelona in 2004 where he scored 130 goals in five seasons and also became the record holder for the most appearances by an African player in La Liga. Winning La Liga three times, he was a key member of the Barcelona attack, alongside Ronaldinho, that won the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final, with Eto’o scoring in the final, and was part of a front three of Lionel Messi and Thierry Henry that won the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final, with Eto’o again scoring in the final. He is the second player in history to score in two UEFA Champions League finals. At Barcelona, Eto’o came in third for the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2005 and was twice named in the FIFA FIFPro World XI, in 2005 and 2006.
He signed with Inter Milan for the 2009–10 season, where he became the first player to win two European continental trebles following his back-to-back achievements with Barcelona and Inter. He is the fourth player in Champions League history, after Marcel Desailly, Paulo Sousa, and Gerard Piqué, to have won the trophy two years in a row with different teams. After brief spells with Anzhi Makhachkala, Chelsea, Everton, and Sampdoria, Eto’o found prolific form again in the Süper Lig with Antalyaspor having scored 44 goals in 76 league games. In 2015, he received the Golden Foot Award. Eto’o also played for Konyaspor and Qatari club Qatar SC before hanging his boots.
As a member of the Cameroon national team, Eto’o was a part of the squad that won the Gold Medal at the 2000 Olympics. He also won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2000 and 2002. Eto’o has participated in four World Cups and six Africa Cup of Nations. He is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Africa Cup of Nations, with 18 goals, and is Cameroon’s all-time leading scorer and third most capped player, with 56 goals in 118 caps. Eto’o announced his retirement from international football in August 2014 and club football in 2019.
1.Roger Milla(Cameroon)
Appearances: 871
Goals: 481
Roger Milla is a Cameroonian former professional footballer who played as a forward. He started his career at the famous academy of Dynamo Beervelde. He was one of the first African players to be major stars on the international stage. He played in three World Cups for the Cameroon national team.
He achieved international stardom at 38 years old, an age at which most forwards have retired, by scoring four goals at the 1990 FIFA World Cup and thus becoming the oldest goalscorer in World Cup history. He helped Cameroon become the first African team to reach the World Cup quarter-finals. Four years later, at the age of 42, Milla broke his own record as the oldest goalscorer in World Cup by scoring against Russia in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
Milla is also remembered for his trademark goal celebration of running to the corner flag and performing a dance. In the years that have followed, he has been recognised as a pioneer of the many unconventional and imaginative goal celebrations seen since then. In 2004 he was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world’s greatest living players. In 2007, the Confederation of African Football named Milla the best African player of the previous 50 years.
He made his debut for Eclair de Douala at the age of 15, in the Cameroonian second division. Two years later, aged 17, he became the Cameroonian schools high jump champion.
He then played for Léopard Douala, and later Tonnerre Yaoundé.
In 1977, he was lured to Europe by the French club Valenciennes. There he scored 6 goals in 28 league games over 2 seasons. In 1979 he joined AS Monaco scoring twice in 17 league games in one season.
The next year, he joined Bastia where he scored 35 goals in 113 league appearances for the first team. He next moved to Saint-Etienne in 1984 scoring 31 times in 59 league games. He then starred for Montpellier from 1986 to 1989, where he later went on to become a member of the club’s coaching staff after retiring from French football.
After leaving France in 1987 Milla moved to Réunion in the Indian Ocean where he played for JS Saint-Pierroise. He then returned to Tonnerre in Cameroon for four seasons. He closed out his playing days with two clubs in Indonesia from after the 1994 World Cup to 1996.
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