You can be the most lethal goalscorer football has ever seen, but the harsh truth is that no matter how good you are, a trophy is never guaranteed in this game.
It’s a brutal truth and the only reason we at Planet Football didn’t make it pro. Couldn’t be bothered with teammates and bad luck letting down our killer instincts in front of goal. Trust us, the talent was there.
Harry Kane has put together (another) all-timer season in front of goal, but is set to finish the campaign with only a cappuccino in hand once again after Bayern Munich slumped in the Bundesliga and were booted out of the Champions League semi-final, but he’s not the only one in this unfortunate club of players.
With help from Transfermarkt, we’ve gathered the top 10 goalscorers (career totals) who have turned out for clubs in Europe’s top five leagues since the year 2000, who have never won a major trophy for club or country.
10. Wahbi Khazri – 129 goals
A Ligue 2 title with Bastia in 2012 is about as good as it’s ever got for Khazri, who came agonisingly close to a major honour in 2020, with St-Etienne finishing runners up to – you guessed it – Paris Saint-Germain in the Coupe de France.
The Tunisian forward flattered to deceive at Sunderland, but has always been good for a goal in the French top flight, where he’s spent the majority of his career. With over 100 top-flight goals to his name, there’s no doubting his credentials.
9. Youssouf Hadji – 137 goals
The iconic Moroccan attacking midfielder/forward enjoyed three separate spells with French side Nancy and lifted Ligue 2 with them in his third spell as a veteran in 2015-16, firing them back to the top flight in one of football’s most romantic modern stories.
Hadji enjoyed time in Ligue 1 with various clubs before firing Nancy back up to the top-flight, but couldn’t ever really make it stick despite scoring well over 100 goals in Europe’s top five in first-division football.
Having thought about it, though, if we were Hadji, we wouldn’t change a thing. The sheer elation of that Ligue 2 title – even if they were relegated again in 2016-17 – after three spells with Nancy eclipses the feeling of any cheap top-flight honour.
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8. Gylfi Sigurdsson – 147 goals
Despite boasting an impressive goalscoring record from midfield for club and country, a major trophy has continually eluded Sigurdsson.
The 34-year-old is now playing outside of Europe’s top five, back in his native Iceland.
7. Kevin Volland – 154 goals
A proper German football stalwart, it’s easy to forget about Volland’s rather random, three-year stint in Monaco. The striker has always felt somewhat overlooked, but perhaps that would’ve been different if he’d had more luck on the silverware front.
Volland has always been good for a goal and his record of over 150 strikes at top level and counting is the proof in the pudding. The guy’s got it, but his trophy cabinet at home doesn’t reflect it. A big shame.
Still, though, Volland is only 31 and has every chance of earning a bit of good luck in the form of a cup run somewhere. Maybe even a freak Bundesliga win, now that the Bayern Munich monopoly has been broken.
6. Luis Muriel – 157 goals
Perhaps one of the most underrated forwards of the last decade, Serie A enthusiasts will know all about Muriel and his importance to Gian Piero Gasperini’s exceptionally fun Atalanta outfit in more recent times.
The Colombian really found his stride with La Dea, but he’s actually been prolific in both Italy and Spain. A spot in the Serie A Team of the Year for 2020-21 is about as good as it’s gotten, though, with them finishing runners-up in the Coppa Italia that year also.
He’s playing his football for Orlando City these days, but we’ll never forget those glory days in Bergamo.
5. Dimitri Payet – 165 goals
Who needs a major trophy when you could bend a free-kick around the Great Wall of China and still find top bins, given a handful of attempts to do so?
Payet undoubtedly had the talent to be an elite-level footballer and his stint at West Ham was proof of that, blowing our minds regularly with not only his goals – over 140 of them at the top level – but also how he’d humiliate defenders and defy physics.
He came agonisingly close with France at Euro 2016, but was pipped at the final hurdle by Portugal. Payet has since left the pursuit of European trophies behind to strut his stuff in Brazil – and we are fully behind him.
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4. Vedad Ibisevic – 200 goals
Responsible for firing Bosnia and Herzegovina to their first-ever major tournament and then scoring their first-ever goal at a major tournament in 2014, Ibisevic retired with over 180 top-level goals, but no trophy to show for it.
It didn’t quite work out at PSG in the mid-2000s as Ibisevic came over to Europe from the United States, but he very quickly found his feet in the Bundesliga and fired them in for fun for Hoffenheim, Stuttgart and later Hertha BSC.
3. Cristhian Stuani – 263 goals
Girona’s surprise title charge fizzled away this season, but they’re still set for a top-four finish in La Liga in only their second season back in the top flight, which is an outstanding achievement.
37-year-old Stuani has been there for it all since 2017 and has spent his career flipping between various first and second divisions, but has never got his hands on that major trophy despite scoring hundreds of goals.
This one’s debatable, because Stuani did win a Uruguayan division with Danubio in 2004, although he only made a couple of appearances when breaking through as a teenager. Either way, he’s played in Europe for 17 years now, racking up a ludicrous number of goals, and has no silverware to show for it.
2. Antonio Di Natale – 311 goals
The streets can never forget this bagsman.
Di Natale made a career of being a reliable goalscorer for teams of just about every ability in Serie A, but really kicked into gear later on in his career with Udinese and was putting up numbers comparable to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the early 2010s.
Still Serie A’s top scorer to date with 191 goals from just 385 games, the Italian forward burst into life after turning 30 and developed into one of Europe’s most consistent and lethal finishers, making the Serie A Team of the Year three times, winning the Capocannoniere top scorer award twice and finishing as the Coppa Italia top scorer in 2014-15.
How many major honours does he have to go alongside the goals? None. Football is a horrid game at times.
1. Harry Kane – 402 goals
Oh, Harry. We really thought this was the year it all changed.
Firing them in at a frankly disgusting rate for club and country, Kane is a three-time Premier League Golden Boot winner, a World’s Best Top Scorer and has punched in an absolutely outrageous debut campaign at Bayern Munich, scoring 44 goals and counting in all competitions.
With two games to play, Kane needs five Bundesliga goals to equal Robert Lewandowski’s record-breaking season of 41 league goals. In his debut season. How many trophies does he have to show for this legacy? None. Not even the Bundesliga this season. Make it make sense.
The last time Bayern went trophyless was 2011-12. He might actually be cursed.
