Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi has provided the most assists in football. The Argentina captain has tallied 407 assists for club and country, more than a hundred clear of anyone else on the modern list, and at 39 he is still adding to the total.
Messi has kept creating wherever he has gone. In his first league campaign at Paris Saint-Germain, back in 2021-22, he finished with 15 assists in 26 Ligue 1 outings, including a hat-trick of assists against Clermont Foot in April 2022.
His hat-trick of assists for PSG was the sixth instance in his career where the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner provided three assists in a single game. Furthermore, Messi also became the first player to rack up a hat-trick of assists for two different clubs, having previously done it for FC Barcelona.
Former Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil tops the list for most hat-trick assists in football. Ozil has done it on eight occasions, and that Clermont game took Messi alongside former team-mate Cesc Fabregas on six career assist hat-tricks.
Messi is also the top assist provider in the history of Spanish La Liga, and that record is now closed: he tallied 193 assists in Spain’s top flight before leaving in 2021, far clear of second-placed Xavi on 117.
Thomas Muller, for years the creative engine of Bayern Munich and now playing for the Vancouver Whitecaps in MLS, is second with 303 career assists. Third is Messi’s former Barcelona and current Inter Miami team-mate Luis Suarez, on 298.
Belgium’s Kevin De Bruyne is fourth on 286. Angel di Maria, back at his boyhood club Rosario Central in Argentina, is fifth with 278, one place above his former Real Madrid team-mate and five-time Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, who has provided 276.
One caveat is worth stating plainly, because it explains why lists of this record published elsewhere look different. Assists were not an officially recorded statistic for most of football’s history, so the table below covers the era of reliable records. Compilations that also include reconstructed figures from earlier decades place Ferenc Puskas on around 404, Pele on 369 and Johan Cruyff on 358 — ahead of everyone here except Messi, who leads those versions of the list too. Figures on this page are current to 27 August 2026, and the active players are all still playing.
Most assists in football: the top 10 since reliable records began
| Rank | Player | Country | Assists |
| 1 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 407 |
| 2 | Thomas Muller | Germany | 303 |
| 3 | Luis Suarez | Uruguay | 298 |
| 4 | Kevin De Bruyne | Belgium | 286 |
| 5 | Angel Di Maria | Argentina | 278 |
| 6 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 276 |
| 7 | Mesut Ozil | Germany | 262 |
| 8 | Ryan Giggs | Wales | 258 |
| 9 | David Beckham | England | 256 |
| 10 | Cesc Fabregas | Spain | 253 |
Featured photo: AFP / Ben Stansall