Top 15 ranked
©TM/IMAGO
While most European football seasons don’t run parallel to the calendar year, January can often bring with it a clean slate and a renewed perspective on how any given player is going at their club. All of a sudden, rather than being defined by the start of the season, a team or even an individual player can be judged based on how well they’ve done over the course of a calendar year. And no group of players are under more scrutiny than strikers. So in the spirit of arbitrary timescales to define a player’s form, let’s take a look at which players from Europe’s top five leagues have scored the most goals in 2025 so far.
As the year unfolds, Paris Saint-Germain winger Ousmane Dembélé has surprisingly emerged as the leading goal scorer across league and cup competitions for the Ligue 1 side. The French forward has netted an impressive 15 goals in just 638 minutes of play, averaging a goal roughly every 43 minutes, which places him well ahead of the competition. Trailing Dembélé is his former team mate Kylian Mbappé who now looks well settled at Real Madrid and undoubtedly on form, having bagged 11 goals in 2025 alone. In third place is Genoa’s Mateo Retegui, who has managed nine goals in 660 minutes. His presence near the top of the list highlights his growing reputation as a reliable goal scorer in European football and may come as a surprise, considering the big names lagging behind the Serie A star.
To the delight of LaLiga fans, right behind the Italian striker is Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski, with nine goals in 730 minutes of football for the Spanish giants. Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane sits level with his Polish counterparts with nine goals in 2025, but needed an extra 107 minutes to get there so sits in fifth place. But close behind both players is Manchester City star Erling Haaland, who has managed eight goals in 772 minutes of football in 2025, despite the fact that his team have seriously struggled for consistency in domestic and European competition since the turn of the year. Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah and Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martínez join the Norwegian striker on eight goals.
Several players are tied on seven goals, including Patrik Schick, Estéban Lepaul, Raphinha, and Rodrygo. However, perhaps the most unexpected names to venture into the top 10 are none other tha Nottingham Forest’s senior target man Chris Wood and former Arsenal academy striker Mika Biereth, who seems to be forging an impressive name for himself at Monaco as a dependable goalscorer in 2025. With seven goals in 618 minutes, Crystal Palace forward Jean-Philippe Mateta just missed out on the top 10, but could easily improve on twelfth in the coming weeks.
