For 15 years, the Iranian Ali Daei’s world record has stood for the most goals in international football matches with 109 goals.
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No Gerd Müller, not Pele or Diego Maradona and also no Lionel Messi: The Iranian Ali Daei’s world record for the most goals in international football matches has been 109 for 15 years. The former Bundesliga professional achieved this mark in his already secure entry in the history books on March 1, 2006 in Tehran in an international test for Iran’s later appearance at the 2006 World Cup in Germany against Costa Rica.
Almost inevitably, Daei had already broken the sound barrier of 100 international goals around 15 months earlier: his second of a total of four goals in Iran’s 7-0 victory in Asia’s World Cup qualification against Laos brought the center forward the prestigious anniversary after Daei the more than 45-year-old record of the Hungarian idol Ferenc Puskas from 1956 with 84 goals had already surpassed some time before.
In his 149 appearances in the national dress, Daei only scored one goal against an opponent from the top 10 of the world rankings and 55 against teams beyond 100th place.
But Daei also proved his scoring risk in the Bundesliga from 1997 to 2002. After seven goals for Arminia Bielefeld, Bayern Munich even brought the striker to the Isar, where Daei scored six times for the record champions. On his last stop in Germany at Hertha BSC, Daei entered the scorers list six more times.
While experts had given Daeis 109 goals in 2006 a good chance as a “record for eternity”, the record is now shaking. Because superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has been chasing this world record for some time in his insatiable hunger for goals: In his 170 international matches for European champions Portugal, “CR7” has already scored 102 times.
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