Top 20 ranked 

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. 

Dembélé Leads the Way in 2025 Goal Scoring Charts

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 13 goals in just 530 minutes of play, averaging a goal roughly every 41 minute, which places him well ahead of the competition. Trailing Dembélé is Genoa’s Mateo Retegui, who has managed nine goals in 535 minutes. His presence near the top of the list highlights his growing reputation as a reliable goal scorer in European football. Joining him on nine goals is Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappé, who has bagged an equal amount over 895 minutes. 

To the delight of LaLiga fans, right behind the Madrid striker is Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski, with eight goals in 850 minutes of football for the Spanish giants. Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane, and Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martínez have each recorded eight goals so far too but needed slightly more game time than their Polish counterpart. Several players are tied on seven goals, including Patrik Schick, Estéban Lepaul, Raphinha, and Rodrygo. Schick, who continues to lead the line for Bayer Leverkusen, has been in scintillating form since returning from an injury that ruled him out for much of the first half of the season, while Barcelona’s Raphinha and Real Madrid’s Rodrygo show LaLiga’s strong attacking presence and the tantalising rivalry between its two biggest clubs. 

We have to venture outside the top 10 to find our first Premier League strikers, but the players sitting in eleventh and twelfth place may surprise some football fans. With six goals in 438 minutes, Crystal Palace forward Jean-Philippe Mateta just missed out on the top 10 but sits slightly ahead of Nottingham Forest targetman Chris Wood. Impressively, both forwards have proven to be more efficient goalscorers than household names in the English top-flight, such as Alexander Isak, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden. Or even Liverpool star Mohamed Salah, who only just squeezes into the top 20 with six goals in 708 minutes.