It doesn’t take much guesswork even for a neutral to recognise who Roma’s top goalscorer of all time is: Francesco Totti.
Over the course of a 25-year career, Totti – despite not starting out as a striker – amassed an incredible 307 goals in all competitions for Roma, which is more than double the final tally of the club’s second leading goalscorer of all time.
In fact, after becoming Roma’s top goalscorer of all time in 2005, Totti enjoyed more than a decade of extra action, including the 2006-07 season in which he won the European Golden Shoe.
Some youthful Roma fans will only ever remember Totti being the club’s top scorer of all time, but who set the pace in the early days after the club’s foundation in 1927 and who did he eventually overtake in the scoring charts?
Here’s the timeline of every player to have been Roma’s top scorer of all time – either joint or outright – from the team’s very first goal in 1927 to Totti setting a record that will likely never be matched in 2005.
September 25, 1927
Ziroli scores first goal (1), Fasanelli matches
The first official match in Roma’s history was against Livorno in September 1927. The opening goal was scored by Luigi Ziroli after just less than an hour of play. Later in the same game, Cesare Augusto Fasanelli scored to complete a 2-0 win, and thus both players ended the day as Roma’s first leading goalscorers.
October 9, 1927
Cappa and Bussich match 1, Fasanelli takes lead (2)
Roma’s second game of the 1927-28 season was a goalless draw, but they raced into a three-goal lead inside half an hour of their third game. Enrico Cappa and Mario Bussich scored to briefly become joint-record holders (for the only time in Cappa’s case), before Fasanelli scored Roma’s third goal in a 3-1 win to become the first player to have scored twice for the new club.
October 16, 1927
Bussich matches Fasanelli (2)
A week later, Roma suffered their first ever defeat, losing 2-1 to Novara. Their only goal was scored by Bussich, who thus equalled Fasanelli on two goals for the season and his Roma career.
December 4, 1927
Bussich takes lead (3), Fasanelli matches, Bussich takes lead again (4)
Roma then failed to score in their next three games before getting back on track with a 1-1 draw against Casale in late November (the goal being scored by a player getting his first for the club and thus not threatening the freshly evolving record). The following week, they were back to winning ways, beating Pro Patria 3-0. The first goal was scored by Bussich, who thus became the top scorer on three goals, before Fasanelli scored the second to equal him. Bussich then completed the first brace in Roma’s history to take the lead anew on four goals for the season. No one would catch Bussich by the end of the Divisione Nazionale season, which he finished on 10 goals.
May 17, 1928
Chini matches Bussich (10)
The league season was followed by the Coppa CONI, which began with a group phase. Bussich actually didn’t score in the first half of the group stage, which allowed a different player to catch up with him. Arturo Chini Ludueña, the first foreign player in Roma’s history, had ended the league season on seven goals, and scored in three consecutive cup games in May – latterly with the winner against Brescia – to equal Bussich on 10 goals.
June 28, 1928
Chini takes lead (11), Bussich matches
Roma enjoyed a 6-0 win over La Dominante in their eighth group game in the Coppa CONI. Chini opened the scoring to take the lead as their all-time top scorer with his 11th goal, but Bussich scored the third goal of the game to reach a tally of 11 for the club himself too. Meanwhile, Fasanelli scored the other four goals to close in by reaching the landmark of 10.
July 1, 1928
Chini goes ahead again (12)
A few days later, Chini opened the scoring in a draw with Brescia to become the outright top scorer again on 12 goals. He went on to score another two in the next game as well, completing an unmatched tally of 14 goals by the end of Roma’s first season.
January 13, 1929
Fasanelli matches (18) and overtakes Chini (19), Chini matches
Chini scored in Roma’s first game of the 1928-29 season and then a hat-trick in their third, taking him to 18 goals before going on a bit of a goal drought. This enabled Fasanelli to catch up with him. In January 1929, Roma won 3-0 against Atalanta. Fasanelli scored the first goal, which saw him match Chini on 18 for the club, before overtaking his teammate by scoring a second. Chini responded around half an hour later, ending his drought and scoring his own 19th goal for Roma.
January 27, 1929
Chini restores lead (20)
No Roma player scored the week after the Atalanta game, but Chini found his form in front of goal again later in the same month, converting the equaliser against Milan to become the first Roma player to hit the milestone of 20 goals.
February 24, 1929
Fasanelli overtakes with brace (21)
Towards the end of February 1929, after drawing their past two games 0-0, Roma thrashed Triestina 4-0 with braces by Fasanelli and summer signing Rodolfo Volk. Fasanelli, whose goals both came in the first half, thus caught Chini on 20 goals and overtook him with his 21st.
May 12, 1929
Chini matches Fasanelli (24), Fasanelli restores lead (25)
Chini did well to keep pace with Fasanelli over the next few weeks. After the win over Triestina, they both scored in three of Roma’s next four games. In all those instances, Fasanelli scored first, so retained his lead. On 12th May, though, when they both scored against Pro Patria, this time it was Chini scoring first – to match Fasanelli on 24 for the club – before the Italian brought up his quarter-century of goals as the outright leader again just 10 minutes later.
June 2, 1929
Chini brace earns lead (27)
Chini and Fasanelli both scored again a week later, with some reports erroneously attributing two goals to Fasanelli, when one of those was actually by Fulvio Bernardini, meaning he ended May 1929 on 26 goals and Chini on 25. Then, in the first game of June – a 3-1 win over Atalanta – Chini scored a brace to overtake Fasanelli onto 27 goals. He scored a brace the week after as well to conclude his second season with Roma as their all-time leading scorer on 29 goals.
March 16, 1930
Volk catches Chini (36), Chini regains lead (37)
After finishing his first season with Roma on 24 goals, putting him behind only Chini and Fasanelli in the all-time scorers chart in half the time, Volk continued his prolific form in the 1929-30 season, including scoring the first goal in the Derby Della Capitale. His momentum ultimately saw him catch up with Chini – by this point on 36 goals for the club – in March 1930, during a 5-0 win over Triestina. Volk scored just after half time to go level with Chini, but the Argentine scored less than 20 minutes later to go in front once more on 37 goals.
March 23, 1930
Volk matches Chini (37)
In Roma’s next game a week later, Volk was the only scorer in a win over Milan, thus equalling Chini’s tally of goals for the club again.
April 20, 1930
Chini gets in front (38), Volk overtakes with hat-trick (40)
Roma trounced Pro Vercelli 7-0 in April 1930, with the opening goal courtesy of Chini, who thus moved clear on 38 goals for the club. He wasn’t alone at the summit for long, though, as Volk scored just before half time. Volk went on to complete a hat-trick, which saw him become the first Roma player to reach 40 goals.
June 15, 1930
Chini matches Volk (41)
Volk and Chini both scored in the second Derby of the season – the former doing so first to preserve his lead in the scoring charts. Chini caught up with him the following month, scoring the last goal in a 3-0 win over Torino to equal the tally of 41 goals.
June 29, 1930
Volk accelerates away (42)
Volk regained the outright lead in Roma’s next game a fortnight later, despite it ending as a 5-2 defeat to Bologna. From that point on, thanks also to a hat-trick in the final game of the season another week later, Volk accelerated away as Roma’s all-time top scorer. By the time he left the club in 1933, he had scored a total of 105* goals, becoming the first player to reach triple figures for Roma (having also become the first to reach 50 by November 1930).
*Roma’s official records recognise Volk as having scored 106 goals, but that is believed to include an extra goal attributed to him from a game against Modena in 1931, in which newspaper reports confirmed he scored twice, not three times.
May 6, 1948
Amadei matches Volk (105)
Volk remained Roma’s record scorer and only centurion for the best part of 18 years, until he was overtaken in 1948 by Amedeo Amadei. Amadei had become Roma’s youngest ever goalscorer in 1937 and his goal tally for the club would have been higher if it wasn’t for the Second World War. (In fact, he scored 32 goals in the Campionato Romano di Guerra between 1943 and 1945, which aren’t officially counted due to the competition not being a valid equivalent). In terms of official goals, Amadei reached 100 in January 1948, by which point he was captain of the club. He reached Volk’s tally of 105 goals by scoring in a defeat to Sampdoria in May 1948.
May 9, 1948
Amadei sets himself apart (106)
Amadei moved onto 106 goals just three days later as the only scorer in a win over Napoli, overtaking Volk (for those who count Volk’s tally as 106, Amadei moved onto 107 on 30th May). Not long after, Roma would be forced to sell Amadei amid financial issues. His final official record was 111 goals, a record that would stand for nearly 37 more years.
April 21, 1985
Pruzzo equals record (111)
With the next player to reach 100 goals for Roma, Pedro Manfredini from the 1960s, falling short of Amadei’s grand total, it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that he was caught by Roberto Pruzzo. Pruzzo, who had joined the club in 1978, was a member of the Scudetto-winning squad in 1982-83, having been the Serie A top scorer in two consecutive seasons prior. His record-equalling 111th goal for Roma came in April 1985, when he opened the scoring in a win over Udinese.
May 5, 1985
Pruzzo sets new benchmark (112)
A couple of weeks later, Pruzzo set his own record by scoring a penalty against Cremonese to reach an unprecedented 112 goals for Roma. He ultimately completed a decade of service to the club before leaving in 1988 with a total of 138 goals behind him.
September 15, 2005
Totti matches Pruzzo (138)
And then came Francesco Totti. The Roma goalscorer to beat all Roma goalscorers. Debuting as a 16-year-old in 1993 and scoring his first goal in 1994, a few weeks before his 18th birthday, Totti cemented his place in the history books with his goalscoring feats. After captaining Roma to their third Scudetto in 2000-01, Totti went on to score his 100th goal for the club in 2003. In December 2004, he overtook Pruzzo as Roma’s top scorer in Serie A only, but still had the all-competitions record to chase down. On that front, he caught up with Pruzzo in September 2005, thanks to a goal in the UEFA Cup first round against Aris.
September 21, 2005
Totti makes record his own (139)
Six days later, Totti scored his 139th goal for Roma to become their outright record scorer. The occasion was a Serie A match against Parma, which ended up as a 4-1 win. After 24 minutes, Totti scored the first goal to become Roma’s all-time top scorer for good.
And then he kept scoring.
And kept scoring.
And kept scoring.
By the time he retired in 2017, he hadn’t just overtaken Pruzzo (a natural striker) in Roma’s scoring chart. He had more than double the number of goals to his name.
Totti’s final Roma goal tally – which would take a 30-goal-a-season striker more than a decade to surpass – was 307.
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