Who Scores More Goals: Forwards or Midfielders? 12,679 Goals Checked

·4 min read·By Denver

Forwards scored 47.0% of 12,679 goals with a named scorer, midfielders 39.8% and defenders 12.5%. Fans put 72.1% of their goalscorer picks on forwards.

Forwards score the most goals, but not by as much as you might think. Of the 12,679 goals with a named scorer in the matches where CalledItMate players made goalscorer picks between 22 March and 30 September 2026, forwards scored 5,961 (47.0%) and midfielders 5,050 (39.8%).

Here is the full split, the answer for the first goal of a match, and how fans' picks compare.

Goals by position

These are all goals with a named scorer in the 4,072 finished matches where at least one goalscorer pick was graded:

  • Forwards: 5,961 goals (47.0%)
  • Midfielders: 5,050 goals (39.8%)
  • Defenders: 1,583 goals (12.5%)
  • Goalkeepers: 4 goals
  • Position not listed: 81 goals (0.6%)

Positions come from the line-up data for each match, and that data lumps a lot of players into "midfielder", including wingers and attacking midfielders who play close to the striker. So the line between forward and midfielder depends on how a team's line-up is listed, and the midfield share includes plenty of attacking players.

The most common first goalscorer position

For the first goal of a match the picture is almost identical. Of 3,104 first goals with a named scorer:

  • Forwards: 1,434 (46.2%)
  • Midfielders: 1,217 (39.2%)
  • Defenders: 425 (13.7%)
  • Goalkeepers: 1

So the most common first goalscorer position is forward, with midfield a clear second and defenders scoring roughly one opener in seven.

Where fans put their goalscorer picks

On CalledItMate, players call who will score the next goal while a match is live. 560 players made 20,712 graded goalscorer picks in the window. By the position of the player picked:

  • Forwards: 14,927 picks (72.1%)
  • Midfielders: 5,313 picks (25.7%)
  • Defenders: 417 picks (2.0%)
  • Goalkeepers: 48 picks (0.2%)

Forwards scored under half the goals but got nearly three quarters of the picks. Midfielders scored about two goals in five and got about one pick in four.

So should you back midfielders more?

Not necessarily, and this is the part that trips people up. Here is how often each pick landed:

  • Forwards: 2,660 of 14,927 landed (17.8%)
  • Midfielders: 413 of 5,313 landed (7.8%)
  • Defenders: 10 of 417 landed (2.4%)
  • Goalkeepers: none of 48

Across all picks, 3,083 of 20,712 landed (14.9%).

Both things are true at once because a pick is one player, not a whole position. Most line-ups name more midfielders than forwards, so midfield goals are shared out among more players, and any single midfielder is less likely to score than the team's striker. Midfield as a group scores a lot. A given midfielder, in this sample, landed less than half as often as a given forward.

The defender figure rests on just 10 successful picks, so read it as what happened in this sample. Defenders do score, 12.5% of goals here, but the goals are spread across a whole back line.

For the first goal of a match alone, 2,854 of 3,847 picks (74.2%) went on forwards and 500 of those landed (17.5%). Midfielder picks landed 66 times out of 928 (7.1%).

None of this measures any player's ability. It describes how fans pick and how goals were shared out in the matches they played.

What this means for your goalscorer picks

  • The striker is usually the best single bet. Forwards had the highest landing rate by a distance in this sample.
  • Do not ignore the attacking midfielder. The midfield label covers wingers and number tens who score often, and fans back them far less than forwards.
  • Watch the game. Picks are made live, so who is getting chances, who has been subbed and who takes the set pieces all matter more than position alone.

There is more on making live picks in our goalscorer predictions guide, and the position split also appears in our draws study, which was frozen a few hours earlier and so has slightly lower counts with the same rates to within a fraction of a point.

How we counted

  • Window: matches that kicked off from 22 March to 30 September 2026 inclusive (UTC), finished, and have a recorded final score. Data read on 1 October 2026.
  • Excluded: internal test matches, house accounts run by CalledItMate, and duplicate accounts merged into another account.
  • Goals are goals with a named scorer that stood, in the finished matches where at least one goalscorer pick was graded. Goals overturned by VAR are excluded.
  • Goalscorer picks are graded calls on who scores the next goal. Picks the game voided, for example ones placed too close to the goal they were graded on, are excluded.
  • Positions come from the match line-up data and are grouped into forwards, midfielders, defenders and goalkeepers.

Want to put the numbers to work? CalledItMate is a free football prediction game: call the correct score before kick-off, then pick the next goalscorer and the next team to score while the match is live. There is nothing to stake, and the weekly winner takes a real cash prize (how the prizes work). Play free at calleditmate.com.

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