A hat-trick means three goals scored by a single player. That part is straightforward, but it’s not something just any soccer player can pull off. Stars like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and other greats are the usual names you hear about scoring a trio of goals in a single match.
Most fans know exactly what a hat-trick signifies: a player scores three goals in a game, and they’ve got a hat-trick. But where did the name actually come from? Surprisingly, the origin has nothing to do with soccer.
It all started with a cricket bowler, H.H. Stephenson. During an 1858 match in Sheffield while playing for the England national team, he hit the wooden stakes behind the cricket batter three times in a row (consecutive wickets). After the game, he was gifted a new hat, and that’s how the term “hat-trick” was born.
The first hat-trick in history
Two decades after the term was coined in cricket, the first international soccer hat-trick was recorded on March 2, 1878, when Scotland’s John McDougall scored three goals against England.
Illustration of John McDougall image from 1877, Protographer unknown. (Made with Gemini AI)
When it comes to domestic leagues, one of the earliest recorded hat-tricks occurred 10 years after McDougall’s international feat. In 1888, William Tait scored three goals against the Bolton Wanderers in what was then the English Football League.
In MLS, the first player to record a hat-trick was D.C. United’s Steve Rammel, who netted three goals to help secure a 5-2 win against the Columbus Crew on May 15, 1996. He was named an MLS All-Star later that year.
The player with the most hat-tricks
According to Guinness World Records, Pelé holds the record for the most hat-tricks with a total of 92 official hat-tricks. That staggering tally spans his career playing for the Brazil national team, Santos FC, and the New York Cosmos. No one has broken that record yet, and it’s highly likely no one ever will.
Illustration of Pelé playing for Brazil (Made with Gemini AI)
Cristiano Ronaldo sits in second place with 66 hat-tricks, five more than Messi, who currently has 61 playing for Barcelona, Inter Miami, and Argentina (Messi didn’t manage to score one during his stint with Paris Saint-Germain). However, both legends are tied when it comes to international play, with 11 hat-tricks each for their respective national teams.
