It’s surely the pinnacle for a striker: score a hat-trick, win the game for your team and then take home the match ball. Of course, if it was that easy everybody would be doing it. But Erling Haaland is doing a passable impression of a man who finds notching three or more time in a game to be a breeze.
At the start of the 2024/25 Premier League season, the Norwegian was at the treble for Manchester City in their 4-1 win over Ipswich Town. A week later and, you guessed it, Haaland was at it again: this time his hat-trick came to the detriment of West Ham, with the Cityzens running out 3-1 victors.
Just two months earlier, the striker had scored a summer hat-trick for Norway against Kosovo in a friendly – there’s simply nobody better at firing in a treble than Haaland. In fact, at the current rate he’s going, it’s possible that Haaland will smash all hat-trick records in the history books.
Three Is the Magic Number
You may not know that the term ‘hat-trick’, used when a player scores three times in a game, actually originated in cricket rather than football. When a bowler took three wickets in consecutive balls, they were said to have completed their hat-trick – and, accordingly, were given a hat to commend their feat.
Haaland probably wouldn’t want to wear a hat – it would mess with his luscious Scandinavian locks, but if he’s on a goal bonus (as most strikers are) then he could buy pretty much any hat he wants anyway. At the time of writing, the Norwegian has scored eight hat-tricks in the Premier League – of course, the way he’s going, he might just have added more by the time you come to read this.
It’s interesting because Haaland notched his eighth Premier League hat-trick in his 69th game in the competition. That means he’s netting as treble roughly every eighth or ninth outing, which is a truly remarkable statistic – particularly when compared to the ratios of the other EPL stars that have scored eight or more hat-tricks in the league’s history:
- Erling Haaland – a hat-trick scored every 8.6 games
- Sergio Aguero – a hat-trick scored every 22.9 games
- Thierry Henry – a hat-trick scored every 32.2 games
- Harry Kane – a hat-trick scored every 40 games
- Alan Shearer – a hat-trick scored every 40 games
- Michael Owen – a hat-trick scored every 40.7 games
- Robbie Fowler – a hat-trick scored every 42.1 games
It’s a comparison that reveals just how incredible Haaland’s Premier League career has been so far….with the time and ability to add yet more hat-tricks to his collection.
Who Has Scored the Most Premier League Hat-Tricks?
As mentioned, Haaland has eight Premier League hat-tricks at the time of writing. It’s a remarkable rate of scoring given that, as of 2024/25, he’s only just into his third full season as a Manchester City player – and still only 24 years of age into the bargain. If he plays on in the EPL until he’s made 250+ appearances, he will surely go on to smash the current Premier League hat-trick record.
That stands at 12, with another former Manchester City striker – Sergio Aguero – responsible. He broke the record in January 2020, netting a treble for the Cityzens against Aston Villa. It came almost a decade after his first for the club in 2011, when he scored all three goals for City in a 3-0 defeat of Wigan. It took the Argentine the best part of ten years to notch a dozen Premier League hat-tricks… Haaland is 66% of the way to that tally inside three years.
Only two other players – Robbie Fowler (nine) and Alan Shearer (eleven) – amassed more Premier League hat-tricks than Haaland. And just another aside to mull over: only six players in Premier League history have scored hat-tricks in consecutive games. Haaland has already done so twice….
Who Has Scored the Most Hat-Tricks in Professional Football?
By our reckoning, Haaland has got 24 career hat-tricks to his name for club and country. It’s an epic feat given that he’s only 24-years-old, although he has some going to catch those at the top of the all-time hat-trick standings. There’s a couple of guys who have reportedly scored 100 or more hat-tricks:
- Erwin Helmchen (141)
- Josef Bican (101)
- Ferenc Deak (100)
However, there’s some uncertainty as to how accurate these records are. Helmchen, for example, campaigned in the lower leagues of Germany during the 1920s right through to the 1950s. He’s the most prolific goalscorer in football history, if you believe the findings of the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF).
As for Bican and Deak, again the actual confirmation of their extraordinary achievement is thin on the ground. We’re in more solid territory with the Guinness Book of Records, of course, who have cited Pelé as their most prolific grabber of hat-tricks in the professional ranks. They have documented 92 hat-tricks from the incredible Brazilian.
Who Has Scored the Most Hat-Tricks in a Season?
Again, this is a record that is determined by how far you want to look down the world football pyramid. If you want to remain somewhere near the top, the haul of nine hat-tricks netted by both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in a single year takes some beating.
They were plying their trade in La Liga at the time of their success, with CR7 netting nine hat-tricks in the Spanish top-flight in 2011 and Messi matching that feat in 2012 with trebles in La Liga, the Champions League and two more while on international duty.
As far as the Premier League is concerned, the current record for hat-tricks in a single season belongs to Shearer. He bagged five trebles during the 1995/96 season, as well as 31 in total, for Blackburn Rovers in a campaign in which they finished a lowly seventh despite their star striker’s exploits. Of course, Haaland has two in 2024/25 already (at the time of writing), so that’s another record that the young Norwegian could break in due course.
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