The all-time leaderboard of World Cup qualifying goals brings together one Guatemalan folk hero and two of football’s greatest icons. Carlos Ruiz, known at home as El Pescadito, stands at the top with 39. Just behind him are Cristiano Ronaldo with 38 and Lionel Messi with 36. One has retired, two are still pushing forward, and all have turned qualifiers, often tense and overlooked, into personal milestones.
Ruiz’s story is the most improbable. Guatemala have never reached the World Cup, but he made every qualifying cycle his stage. Over 47 matches, he scored against 14 different countries, with Costa Rica and Antigua and Barbuda among his most frequent victims.
That unforgettable night came in 2016. At 36 and playing what would be his final international game, Ruiz scored five times in a wild 9–3 win over St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Those goals pushed him past Ali Daei’s long-standing record and handed Guatemala a world record to celebrate. For a nation so often overlooked on the global stage, Ruiz’s farewell became a lasting symbol of pride.
Ronaldo and Messi closing in
Cristiano Ronaldo’s path looks different. He has scored 38 times in 48 qualifying games for Portugal, an efficiency unmatched at this level. Many of his goals have come against Europe’s smaller sides, with Luxembourg, Armenia, and Andorra regularly on the receiving end. But his record also includes high-pressure braces and hat tricks, including a decisive flurry in Belfast against Northern Ireland during the 2014 cycle. This month, Ronaldo added two more in a 5–0 win over Armenia, moving him within one of Ruiz and two clear of Messi. At 40, he continues to approach each match as if records are waiting to be broken.
Messi’s journey through South America has been tougher. In CONMEBOL qualifying, there are no easy nights. His 36 goals in 72 games are hard-earned, carved out in altitude in La Paz, in rain-soaked trips to Colombia, and in packed stadiums in Montevideo and Santiago. The defining moment came in Quito in 2017, when Argentina were on the brink of missing the World Cup. Down 1–0 within a minute, Messi responded with a hat trick that rescued his nation. Those goals sit alongside free kicks, long-range strikes, and clutch finishes that made Argentina’s road to Qatar and now 2026 less treacherous. Yet at 36, with retirement looming, his tally may end just short of the summit.
Context always shapes the story. The range of opposition boosts Ronaldo’s tally he faces in Europe, while Messi’s goals have been ground out in the relentless marathon of South America. Ruiz wrote his record differently, piling up strikes for a team that never got close to qualifying, but never dulled his hunger. Each path is different, and together they show there’s more than one way to carve a place in football history.
These days, the leaderboard feels less like a table of statistics and more like a collection of stories. People joke that Ronaldo must keep Luxembourg circled on his calendar. Others point out that Messi has built his total against South America’s hardest defenses. But Ruiz still reigns supreme at the end of the day, even if slightly. His unlikely leadership adds a a quirky stat has become another twist in the Ronaldo–Messi rivalry.
Ronaldo and Messi chase Ruiz’s unlikely World Cup qualifying record
