Most Popular Football Goals of All Time: Iconic Strikes

A ball boy standing near the post at the 1997 Tournoi de France ducked before Roberto Carlos’s free kick had even finished bending. He thought it was going wide. It wasn’t. That instinct, and how wrong it turned out to be, is a good way to explain why certain goals stick in people’s memory for decades while thousands of others are forgotten within the week. Maradona’s solo run in 1986, that Carlos strike, and Zidane’s volley in the 2002 Champions League final are the ones people still pull up on their phones to rewatch.

What makes a goal iconic

A few things tend to overlap in the goals people never stop sharing:

• Improbability, when a player attempts something that looks impossible and pulls it off
• Context, since a decisive goal in a World Cup final carries more weight than the same strike in a friendly
• Visual drama, goals that look spectacular on replay get passed down across generations
• The player’s stature, a stunning goal from a legendary name lands differently

The most popular football goals ever scored

Goal	Player	Competition	Year
Solo run vs England	Diego Maradona	FIFA World Cup	1986
Impossible free kick vs France	Roberto Carlos	Tournoi de France	1997
Volley in the Champions League final	Zinedine Zidane	UEFA Champions League	2002
Solo run vs Barcelona	Lionel Messi	Copa del Rey	2007
Half-volley vs Leverkusen	Michael Owen	UEFA Champions League	2001
Overhead kick vs Juventus	Cristiano Ronaldo	UEFA Champions League	2018
Long-range strike vs Chelsea	Wayne Rooney	Premier League	2011
Chip over goalkeeper	Pelé	Club Atletico Santos (Brazil)	1961

This isn’t a strict ranking or a complete list. It’s the set of goals that keep showing up in fan polls and media retrospectives decade after decade.

Diego Maradona: the Goal of the Century (1986)

In the quarterfinal against England at the 1986 World Cup, Maradona picked up the ball just inside his own half, turned, and dribbled past Peter Reid, Peter Beardsley, Terry Butcher, and goalkeeper Peter Shilton before rolling it into an empty net. The run covered roughly 60 meters in about 10 seconds. FIFA fans voted it the Goal of the Century in 2002.

The same match also produced the “Hand of God” goal, which makes it maybe the most discussed 45 minutes in football history.

Roberto Carlos: the free kick that physics had to explain (1997)

Carlos’s strike at the 1997 Tournoi de France looked, for its first half-second, like it was sailing well wide of the post. Then it curved, sharply, into the net. Aerodynamics researchers later published papers trying to explain the trajectory. No free kick has been studied more closely.

Zinedine Zidane: 2002 Champions League final

Real Madrid met Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow. Roberto Carlos crossed from the left, the ball dropped toward the edge of the box, and Zidane met it on the volley with his weaker left foot. It flew into the top corner. Controlling a ball dropping at that speed and angle, left-footed, in a Champions League final, is the part that separates this goal from most others on this list.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi each have their own

Ronaldo’s overhead kick against Juventus in 2018 was struck so cleanly that the home fans in Turin stood and applauded an opponent. Messi’s solo run in the 2007 Copa del Rey drew instant comparisons to Maradona’s 1986 goal, both for the distance covered and the number of defenders left behind.

Neither goal changed a title race. Both changed how people talk about what’s possible with a ball at your feet.