The Countdown to 10,000 Goals

Tonight is the first competitive game of the 2011 MLS season, as RSL visits Columbus for the first leg of the CCL quarterfinal. That's also the first chance to add a couple of goals to the all time total, one that is rapidly nearing a huge milestone: 10,000 goals. Let the countdown begin! I'll be updating the progress every so often, like I did last year for the 1,500th player (Tyler Deric, remember?).

By my count, MLS teams have scored 9,544 goals in all competitions from 1996-2010. Of that total, 7,997 were scored in MLS regular season action (which means the 8,000th will occur during the opening week, another milestone). Here's the list of goals by competition:


Goals by Competition

	Goals	Top Scorer
MLS	7,997	Jaime Moreno - 133
Open Cup	596	Jaime Moreno - 13
Playoffs	531	Landon Donovan - 13
Champions League	215	Luciano Emilio - 9
Superliga	81	Landon Donovan - 4
OC Qualifying	73	John Wolyniec - 5
Canadian Champ.	15	Dwayne De Rosario - 4
Copa Merconorte	12	Roy Lassiter - 3
CCL Qualifying	8	8 players tied - 1
Giants Cup	8	3 players tied - 2
Copa Sudamerica	5	4 players tied - 1
Copa Interamericana	2	2 players tied - 1
Cup Winners Cup	2	Dante Washington - 2
Total	9,544	Jaime Moreno - 164

CCL qualifying refers to the handful of matches played in the late 1990's by Colorado and LA.

If you add up the totals for each competition, you might notice that the sum is actually 9,545. That's due to the one match in 1999 which doubled as a regular season match and an Open Cup match (Colorado 1:0 Tampa Bay). You have no idea how much extra work that one match has caused me over the years (lol).

I would estimate that the 10,000th goal will occur sometime around late June or early July.


Goals by Team

	Goals	Top Scorer
DC	971	Jaime Moreno - 162
LA	916	Landon Donovan - 89
CLB	814	Brian McBride - 79
DAL	813	Jason Kreis - 99
CHI	760	Ante Razov - 95
KC	755	Preki - 81
NE	749	Taylor Twellman - 119
NY	747	Juan Pablo Angel - 62
COL	681	Paul Bravo - 46
SJ	653	Ronald Cerritos - 66
TB	335	Roy Lassiter - 44
HOU	294	Brian Ching - 57
RSL	279	Robbie Findley - 34
CHV	254	Ante Razov - 34
MIA	229	Diego Serna - 59
TOR	152	Dwayne De Rosario - 31
SEA	106	Fredy Montero - 25
PHI	36	Sebastien Le Toux - 15

DC is likely to become the first team to reach 1,000 goals this season.


Further Reading

• Milestone MLS regular season goals