Liga MX’s greatest goalscorers

While there has recently been plenty of talk of Mexico’s goalscoring troubles ahead of the World Cup in Qatar, we take a look at players who have historically had few problems finding the net in Mexican football, and in Liga MX in particular.

1 – Evanivaldo Castro Silva (Cabinho) – 312 goals

Nicknamed Cabinho - the corporal - because of his penchant for wearing military camouflage clothing, few would have envisaged the Brazilian going on to achieve what he did in Mexican football following his move from Portuguesa in 1974.

Cabinho heads the list, netting 312 times in a 14-year spell in Liga MX up until his retirement in 1988. UNAM (151 league goals) and Atlante (108) were the greatest beneficiaries, although he also averaged more than a goal a game for León before finishing up at Tigres. Cabinho’s goalscoring exploits ensured he was top Liga MX scorer in eight different seasons, including in seven in a row between 1975 and 1982. Despite his goals, however, he won Liga MX on only one occasion, with UNAM in 1976-77.

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2 – Carlos Hermosillo – 294 goals

Hermosillo spent 16 of his 18 playing seasons in the Mexican top flight and represented no fewer than seven different clubs, although he will forever be remembered for his time at Cruz Azul, which accounted for 169 of his 294 Liga MX goals. Seasons 1994-95 and 1995-96 were particularly productive and topped off a run of three consecutive campaigns in which he won the league’s golden boot.

However, it was in fact at América, his first club, where he enjoyed most success in terms of trophies, winning no fewer than five league titles between 1983 and 1989. Hermosillo was once El Tri’s all-time leading goalscorer with 35 goals in 90 caps but has since been surpassed by Javier Hernández, Jared Borgetti, Cuauhtémoc Blanco and Luis Hernández.

He was refused permission to wear his favoured number 27 shirt in the 1994 World Cup due to FIFA’s shirt numbering system.

3 – Jared Borgetti – 252 goals

Borgetti, now a commentator for ESPN, is next on the list. He ended his career having played for a total of 12 different clubs, including two spells abroad at Bolton Wanderers in England and Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia. However, between 1994 and 2004 is when he was at his most prolific, starting his career with 21 league goals in 61 games at Atlas before going on to become Santos Laguna’s all-time top scorer – they were admittedly only founded in 1983 – with 189 Liga MX strikes, many with his head.

While at Santos, he won the only two club trophies of his career with league victories in 1996 and 2001, with the latter undoubtedly inspired by his 41 goals across the campaign.

Borgetti obtained an Italian passport in order to force through his move to Bolton in 2005, although he stayed for just one season, netting only twice in the Premier League.

4 – José Cardozo – 249 goals

No player in the top all-time top five has a better goals-per-game ratio than the Paraguayan (0.75 goals per game).

Cardozo is, of course, synonymous with Club Deportivo Toluca, the only Mexican club for which he featured either side of stints in his native Paraguay, Switzerland, Chile and Argentina. 249 goals in 332 league games is the definition of a club legend and between 1995 and 2005 he helped the club to five championships, the first of which, in 1998, ended a 23-year wait for a league trophy.

Cardozo has since spent much of his managerial career in Mexico, although a three-year spell as manager of Toluca did not prove as successful as his time as a player.

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5 – Horacio Casarín – 238 goals

You may need to ask your grandfather about Casarín (or, alternatively, watch this video), whose playing career spanned from 1936 to 1957 and took in spells at Necaxa, Atlante, América, Monterrary and the now-defunct pair of Tiburones Rojos de Veracruz and Club Atlético Zacatepec.

Casarin would surely be higher on the list had Liga MX been founded earlier, with many of his goals coming in amateur football before the professional league was established in 1943.

A spell at Barcelona in Spain followed his best goalscoring run during his time at Atlante, while he impressively netted 15 times in 16 games for Mexico, for whom he featured in the 1950 World Cup.

While playing for his first club Necaxa against the disbanded Club de Fútbol Asturias in 1939, Casarín was at the centre of huge controversy, with opposition players committing a series of dangerous fouls on him after he had scored an early goal. Casrín abandoned the field of play in the first half and the incidents led to Necaxa fans burning down Asturias’ wooden stadium.

Top active Liga MX goalscorers

In terms of active Liga MX players, only Tigres’ André-Pierre Gignac, Rogelio Funes Mori of Monterrey and Atlas’ Julio Furch have scored more than 100 goals, with Gignac leading the way on 143. Still some way to go to reach the top 10.