The hat-trick — three goals in a single game — is one of football’s most potent acts of individual brilliance. A show of strength, a taunt to fate, a moment of saying: I can, and I will, and you will watch.
Some do it once and feel they have conquered the gods. Others — the truly prolific — make a habit of it. They haunt the pitch with a predator’s pulse. Here are the ten most prolific hat-trick scorers since the dawn of the new millennium — rising like mythological beasts from the fog of mere mortals.
Here Are The 10 Most Prolific Hat-Trick Goalscorers in Football Since 2000
10. Marc Lloyd Williams — 24 Hat-Tricks
Wales. The land of rain, green, and lost things. Marc Lloyd Williams was a name hardly spoken outside of the valleys, but there — in the low light of the Welsh Premier League — he devoured goals like a man possessed.
In 2001-02, he scored more goals in Europe than any other man. The Golden Boot committee shrugged him off; the league coefficient was too low, they said. So he kept scoring, 24 hat-tricks in total, a forgotten king in a kingdom of mud and drizzle. His finishing did the talking.
9. Erling Haaland – 25 Hat-Tricks
There’s something almost unnatural about the way Erling Haaland scores goals. Power, precision, and ice-cold composure — he is built to score. He has scored hat-tricks in Norway, Austria, Germany, and England.
At just 24, Haaland has already amassed 25 hat-tricks, and you can feel the inevitability of many more. From Molde to RB Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund to Manchester City, his arc has been meteoric, and his numbers may eventually leave everyone else in the dust.
8. Harry Kane — 26 Hat-Tricks
Harry Kane is a goal machine disguised as a traditional English No.9. Clinical and cerebral, Kane has made goal-scoring his vocation. His hat-tricks are not glamorous, not radiant — they are born of toil, of angles measured, of bones crunching in the box.
His career is a story of waiting, of disbelief turned to awe. Tottenham first, then England’s captain, and now at Bayern Munich. 26 hat-tricks, the most goals for England in history, and still he plays like a man being hunted by his own doubts. These 10 Harry Kane facts provide more insight to the Englishman.
7. Vyacheslav Zahovaiko — 26 Hat-Tricks
A name whispered in the football corridors of Estonia, Vyacheslav Zahovaiko carved his legacy in the Baltic region. With 26 hat-tricks in 409 games, almost entirely unnoticed by the world, but witnessed by the cold skies of Tallinn, Zahovaiko’s goal-scoring touch defied the obscurity of his stage.
At FC Flora, he was a force of nature—an unrelenting predator who needed little space, little time, and zero hesitation. Zahovaiko’s name may not echo loudly, but hat-tricks do not vanish. The scorebooks remember.
6. Ali Mabkhout — 27 Hat-Tricks
The desert does not scream; it watches. In the leagues of the UAE, Ali Mabkhout has built an empire of goals. Twenty-seven times he has scored thrice in a match, his name inscribed into the sand like a prophecy.
Now plying his trade at Al-Nasr SC after leaving Al Jazira, he is the highest scorer in UAE Pro League history. The world does not look his way, but the goalposts do. And they bow.
5. Luis Suarez — 30 Hat-Tricks
A chaos artist. A master of the dark arts. But, most importantly, one of the most prolific scorers of the modern era. Luis Suarez has collected hat-tricks like they were souvenirs — from Ajax to Liverpool, Barcelona to Atletico Madrid, and now at Inter Miami.
His hunger for goals remains insatiable, and 30 career hat-tricks are the spoils of his ruthless brilliance, with his legend smelling of teeth and thunder.
4. Robert Lewandowski — 33 Hat-Tricks
Precision. Ruthlessness. Robert Lewandowski is the personification of clinical finishing. The Polish striker has made a career of dismantling defences — and hat-tricks have been his masterpiece.
Whether at Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, or Barcelona, Lewandowski has turned goal-scoring into high art, with 33 hat-tricks as the purest evidence. Hat-tricks are not magic for Lewandowski; they are simply part of the plan.
3. Ali Ashfaq — 35 Hat-Tricks in 617 Games
Far from Europe, in the coral atolls of the Maldives, Ali Ashfaq built a kingdom of goals. Thirty-five hat-tricks in 617 matches. Sixty goals in 98 international appearances. His brilliance burned so bright that the ocean itself seemed to pause.
Few have heard of him; fewer still have watched. But goals are not measured in fame, and his legacy stands, eternal, like an island untouched.
2. Lionel Messi – 59 Hat-Tricks
The man who made magic look mundane. Lionel Messi’s 59 hat-tricks are not feats of force; they are works of grace. The ball clings to his feet like it loves him, like it needs him. Whether drifting off the wing or operating as a false nine, his ability to dismantle defences has never waned.
Even now, at 36, he continues to add to his tally at Inter Miami—each hat-trick a different shade of brilliance. He once scored 91 goals in a single year. He has broken the game. He is still playing. And still, it is not enough.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo — 66 Hat-Tricks
The king. The machine. The remorseless, unbreakable will. Cristiano Ronaldo is not mortal — he is desire made flesh. Sixty-six hat-tricks, spread across Sporting CP, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, and now Al Nassr. A goal in his mind is not a possibility; it is a right.
The crowd do not simply cheer him; it worships. Even now, when his hair grays and his body slows, he continues. There will be more hat-tricks. There will always be more. And when he finally falls, the goalposts themselves will mourn.
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