Why they rank here
Der Bomber der Nation — the most ruthlessly efficient goalscorer the sport has produced. Squat and unspectacular but impossible to mark in the six-yard box, Müller scored 68 goals in just 62 internationals for West Germany, including the winner in the 1974 World Cup final and the golden-boot-topping 10 goals of the 1970 tournament. His single-season Bundesliga record of 40 goals in 1971-72 stood for nearly fifty years, until Robert Lewandowski managed 41 in 2020-21, and his 365 Bundesliga goals remain the competition's all-time mark by a distance. He won the 1970 Ballon d'Or, the 1972 European Championship, and three consecutive European Cups with Bayern Munich from 1974 to 1976, finishing with over 600 goals in senior club and international football. Not a dribbler or a creator — a finisher of pure, remorseless instinct, whose economy in front of goal set the template every poacher since has been measured against.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.