12 Players in Football History With Most Goals Scored After Turning 30

Some footballers consider their 30th birthday to be a watershed moment in their careers. Turning that age is frequently associated with a decline in performance, with players frequently reporting a loss of pace and acceleration, followed by a swansong. In layman’s terms, they’re spending the final portions of their playing careers in a lower level.

Although it is frowned upon as akin to a death kiss, this is not necessarily true. On rare occasions, players – particularly strikers – thrive after turning 30.

Some careers continue on the same path until they reach the age of 40, while a few players are able to change their style of play to ensure their career lasts as long as feasible. That is often the case with attackers and the skill of goal scoring.

Here, we look at the 12 players in football history who, according to Planet Football data, have scored the most goals after turning 30. Spoiler alert: Cristiano Ronaldo, who played in Europe before moving to the Middle East to lead the line for Al-Nassr, is closing in on the top spot. But who are the remaining eleven players?

12Lionel Messi – 324 goals

Lionel Messi has dominated the football world since he replaced Deco for Barcelona in October 2004. The Argentines brought football to a close by hosting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar three years ago, but there was little to complain about before that. At 38 years old, there are questions over how long he will be able to play what we refer to as the beautiful game.

Messi’s goal tally of 324 since turning 30 sees him just make the 12-man list. Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, and Inter Miami have all had the fleet-footed forward’s services throughout that time; for the latter, he scored 68 goals, while for the French club, he scored 32.

11Abe Lenstra – 328 goals

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Although less well-known, some argue that Abe Lenstra is one of the most legendary football players in Dutch history, with Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, and Ruud Gullit, among others. He was born and reared in Friesland, a northwest Dutch province, but is most known for his free-scoring season with Heerenveen.

According to legend, Fiorentina once gave him a blank cheque, a house, and an Opel. He refused to pack up and leave, determined to play for Heerenveen and score plenty of goals. According to some accounts, he scored 763 goals in 760 games for the Dutch club. Given that he was mostly a winger, his total is not particularly spectacular.

10Robert Lewandowski – 330 goals

Robert Lewandowski has made the art of goal scoring appear like second nature since his debut for Delta Warszwara in March 2005. Overall, at the time of writing, Lewandowski has scored over 600 club goals and an extra 87 for his native Poland in just under 1,000 games.

The talismanic Pole, who is now 37 years old and nearing the end of his career, reached 30 while on the books of Bayern Munich – and only a portion of his goals for the Bavarians count towards his post-30 years old total. He has scored 330 goals in his career, 105 of which have come in Barcelona colours.

9Tom Waring – 330 goals

Tom Waring, a highly regarded Villa Park icon, played for Aston Villa during one of their most successful times. Waring’s boyhood club, Tramere Rovers, traded the striker to the Villans in February 1928. That was only 168 days after he made his senior debut for the club – yet they saw the need to cash in, and Waring, famously dubbed ‘Pongo’, went on to score prolifically for the Birmingham-based side.

That was especially true after he entered his 30s, and the goals kept coming for the durable centre-forward, who also played for Barnsley and Accrington Stanley throughout his prolific career. His legacy at Villa is bolstered by his affable nature, but most significantly, the supporters developed a soft spot for him simply because of how dominant he was.

8Zlatan Ibrahimovic – 346 goals

To be honest, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has few types of goals that he didn’t have. Whether it was a simple, inside-the-box tap-in, an impossible long-range strike, or the utterly audacious, the towering Swede was often his club or country’s go-to man, and he was just as effective in his post-30 years for AC Milan and Manchester United as he was before that age.

Ibrahimovic, widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers to never win the Ballon d’Or, was 30 years old when he joined Paris Saint-Germain in 2012, and he went on to score 156 goals in 180 games for the French club. Stints in England, Italy (again), and the United States followed… along with the goals. Overall, he scored 346 goals after turning 30.

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