Who is the highest-scoring football player in history?

The highest-scoring football player in history is Josef Bican, a Czech-Austrian striker who played between 1931 and 1956. During his career, he scored an incredible 805 goals in 530 matches, which means that he averaged 1.52 goals per game.

Bican was born in Vienna in 1913 and started his career in Austria. He played for Rapid Vienna, Admira Vienna, and Slavia Prague, among other clubs. His most prolific season was 1939-1940, when he scored 57 goals in just 26 games for Slavia Prague. He also scored five goals in four games for the Czechoslovak national team.

Bican's scoring record is truly remarkable, especially when you consider that he achieved it without the benefit of modern training methods, sports science, or sophisticated tactics. Other notable prolific scorers in football history include Pele, who scored 757 goals in 812 official matches; Romario, who scored 772 goals in 994 matches; and Lionel Messi, who scored 673 goals in 828 matches (as of May 2021).