According to the modern soccer number positions, the number 9 usually refers to the centre-forward or striker.
Soccer players who wear number 9 are usually the most prolific goal scorers at their clubs.
Here are the players wearing the number 9 shirt in 2025/26.
1. Erling Haaland (Manchester City)
Erling Haaland wears the number 9 for both Manchester City and the Norwegian national team, making him one of the rare players who carry the same number for club and country.
He scored 27 Premier League goals in 2025/26 to claim his third Golden Boot award.
Norway’s number 9 then carried that form into the 2026 World Cup, scoring twice on debut against Iraq in a 4-1 opening win.
He signed the longest contract in Premier League history in January 2025, committing to City until 2034.
2. Liam Delap (Chelsea FC)
Liam Delap signed for Chelsea from Ipswich Town in June 2025 for £30 million and was handed the iconic number 9 shirt, confirmed on ChelseaFC.com’s official squad announcement.
He scored 12 Premier League goals for relegated Ipswich in 2024/25, earning his move to one of the biggest clubs in England.
Delap scored his first Champions League goal against Barcelona in November 2025 and produced a hat-trick of assists in an FA Cup win over Hull City in February 2026.
The Chelsea number 9 has a famously chequered history, with Torres, Morata, Lukaku, and Aubameyang all struggling in the shirt.
Delap looks determined to change that story and finally break what many Blues fans call the number 9 curse at Stamford Bridge.
3. Harry Kane (Bayern Munich)
Harry Kane wears the number 9 for both Bayern Munich and the England national team, captaining his country as their all-time leading goalscorer.
The 2025/26 season was the best of his career, recording 61 goals across all competitions including 36 Bundesliga goals to win the European Golden Boot for the third consecutive year.
He became the most prolific English goalscorer in history during the season, surpassing Jimmy Greaves’s all-time tally for club and country.
Kane then scored a brace in England’s 4-2 World Cup opening win over Croatia, equalling the England record of 10 World Cup goals set by Gary Lineker.
4. Dušan Vlahović (Juventus)
Dušan Vlahović wears the number 9 for both Juventus and the Serbian national team, making him one of the most talked-about players from Serbia in the modern game.
He took the shirt at Juve after Álvaro Morata’s departure and scored 12 or more league goals in each of his four seasons in Turin.
A powerful, technically gifted centre-forward, Vlahović is the type of old-fashioned number 9 that Serie A has always celebrated.
5. Alexander Sørloth (Atletico Madrid)
Alexander Sørloth wears the number 9 for both Atletico Madrid and Norway, confirmed by ESPN, Sofascore, SportBusy, and Atletico’s official club pages.
He scored 13 La Liga goals in 2025/26 and delivered a Champions League hat-trick to help Atletico reach the knockout rounds.
Remarkably, his Atletico clubmate Erling Haaland also wears number 9 for Norway, giving the national team two prolific number 9s from the same dressing room at the 2026 World Cup.
At 6ft 5in, the towering Norwegian is one of the most physically imposing centre-forwards in La Liga.
6. Marcus Thuram (Inter Milan)
Marcus Thuram has worn the number 9 at Inter Milan since joining from Borussia Mönchengladbach, inheriting a shirt with enormous history at the San Siro.
He was a key part of the Nerazzurri side that won the 2025/26 Serie A title, scoring a brace in the opening day win over Torino.
His father Lilian Thuram is a legendary French defender, but Marcus has carved his own identity as one of the modern game’s most dynamic number 9s.
His trademark celebration involves draping the number 9 shirt over a corner flag, a tribute to the position he has made entirely his own at the highest level.
7. Gabriel Jesus (Arsenal FC)
Gabriel Jesus has worn the number 9 at Arsenal since joining from Manchester City in 2022, confirmed on Arsenal.com’s official 2025/26 squad list.
He retained the shirt even when Viktor Gyökeres arrived to take the famous number 14, underlining how valued Jesus remains in Mikel Arteta’s system.
His pressing, movement, and link-up play make him more than a pure goalscorer, and he is one of the best Brazilian forwards currently playing in Europe.
Jesus contributed to Arsenal winning the 2025/26 Premier League title, proving the number 9 at the Emirates does not need to be the flashiest name to be one of the most important.
8. Alexander Isak (Liverpool FC)
Alexander Isak wears the number 9 at Liverpool following his record £125 million transfer from Newcastle United, the biggest in the club’s history.
His first Anfield season was disrupted by injury, but he still showed the composure and quality that made him one of Europe’s most coveted strikers.
Isak also wears the number 9 for Sweden at the 2026 World Cup, forming one of the tournament’s most exciting attacking partnerships alongside his compatriot Viktor Gyökeres.
When fit, the tall, technically gifted Swede is capable of being one of the best number 9s in the Premier League.
9. Niclas Füllkrug (AC Milan)
Niclas Füllkrug wears the number 9 at AC Milan, confirmed by ESPN’s official squad listing for the 2025/26 Serie A season.
The German centre-forward took the shirt at a club where the number 9 had been left vacant at the start of the campaign following the departures of previous occupants.
A powerful, direct target man, Füllkrug brings a very different profile to the Rossoneri’s attack compared to the technical players around him.
His arrival gave the number 9 a physical presence at the San Siro that AC Milan’s attack had been missing for much of the season.
10. Serhou Guirassy (Borussia Dortmund)
Serhou Guirassy wears the number 9 at Borussia Dortmund, joining from Stuttgart where he scored 28 Bundesliga goals in a single season to establish himself as one of Europe’s most clinical finishers.
He brought immediate impact to the Westfalenstadion and scored in Champions League knockout rounds to help Dortmund reach the later stages of the competition.
The Guinea international is the kind of reliable, prolific number 9 that Dortmund had been searching for since losing some of their most celebrated strikers of recent years.
11. Endrick (Real Madrid)
Endrick was handed the iconic number 9 shirt at Real Madrid for 2025/26 after Kylian Mbappé switched to the vacated number 10, confirmed by Fabrizio Romano and Real Madrid’s official announcement.
The shirt he now wears was previously carried at the Bernabéu by Ronaldo Nazário, Hugo Sánchez, and Karim Benzema.
Still a teenager fighting for regular minutes in one of the world’s most competitive squads, Endrick is already a full Brazil international with goals at senior level.
His decision to stay at Madrid rather than seek a loan move shows his belief that he can make the number 9 at the Bernabéu his own in the seasons to come.
12. Gonçalo Ramos (Paris Saint-Germain)
Gonçalo Ramos wears the number 9 at Paris Saint-Germain, confirmed on PSG.fr’s official player profile.
He won back-to-back Champions League titles with the club in 2025 and 2026, scoring eight goals across 35 appearances in 2025/26 largely from the bench.
Ramos scored PSG’s first penalty in the Champions League final shootout against Arsenal, proving that number 9s can win trophies without always starting.
13. Rasmus Højlund (Napoli)
Rasmus Højlund wears the number 9 at Napoli, confirmed by the AiScore squad list and Champions League match data from the 2025/26 season.
The Danish striker joined the Partenopei from Manchester United, where he had struggled for the consistency his talent suggested he was capable of.
He took over a shirt last worn by Victor Osimhen, carrying enormous expectation in a city that idolises its number 9s above almost any other position.
Højlund scored in the Champions League against Sporting CP, and has found Italian football more suited to his movement than the Premier League was during his time at Old Trafford.
14. Pedro (Lazio)
Pedro wears the number 9 at Lazio, confirmed by both Tribuna and SportBusy squad data for the 2025/26 Serie A season.
At 38 years old, the Spaniard remains one of the most technically gifted and experienced forwards in the Italian top flight.
He won the Champions League with Barcelona, multiple La Liga titles, and the Europa League with Chelsea before settling in Rome, making him one of the most decorated wide forwards of his generation.
Pedro is proof that the number 9 does not always belong to the youngest or most expensive striker, but sometimes to the most enduring.
15. Yoane Wissa (Newcastle United)
Yoane Wissa wears the number 9 at Newcastle United, confirmed by ESPN’s official squad listing and NUFC.com, who describe him as “the club’s latest number nine” following his £50 million deadline day move from Brentford in September 2025.
He scored a personal best 19 Premier League goals for Brentford in 2024/25 before earning his move to St James’ Park, where he took the number 9 shirt previously held by Alexander Isak.
Wissa also represents DR Congo internationally, and scored his country’s first ever FIFA World Cup goal in a 1-1 draw against Portugal at the 2026 tournament, a moment of enormous national significance.
His debut Newcastle campaign was disrupted by injury, but his pace, directness, and eye for goal make him one of the most exciting number 9s in the Premier League when fully fit.
16. Lautaro Martínez (Argentina national team)
Lautaro Martínez wears the number 10 at Inter Milan but consistently wears the number 9 for Argentina, having done so throughout the 2022 World Cup triumph in Qatar and the 2024 Copa América title.
His understanding with Lionel Messi has been central to Argentina’s back-to-back successes on the international stage, making him the undisputed number 9 of the world champions.
At Inter, he captains the side and wears the 10 alongside Marcus Thuram’s number 9 in the same dressing room, a rare case of two iconic shirt numbers being worn by equally iconic players at the same club.
17. Victor Osimhen (Galatasaray)
Victor Osimhen left Napoli for Galatasaray in 2024 and continues to wear the number 9, the same shirt he wore during the Serie A title-winning season in Naples.
He is Nigeria’s undisputed number 9 internationally, having led the Super Eagles throughout the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign as their most important attacking player.
One of the most explosive and physically imposing strikers in world football, Osimhen continues to score at a prolific rate in the Turkish Süper Lig.
18. Karim Benzema (formerly Real Madrid)
Karim Benzema defined the number 9 at Real Madrid for over a decade, winning the 2022 Ballon d’Or and five Champions League titles before departing for Al-Ittihad in 2023.
His 2021/22 season of 44 goals in 46 appearances was one of the great individual campaigns in the history of the number 9 position.
The shirt he wore for so long now belongs to Endrick, but Benzema’s legacy at the Bernabéu means his name will forever be associated with that number at Real Madrid.
19. Roberto Firmino (Al-Qadsiah)
Roberto Firmino wore the number 9 at Liverpool for nine seasons, redefining what a modern centre-forward could be for one of the greatest club sides of the last decade.
He sacrificed personal goal tallies to enable the relentless high-press system that delivered the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020.
Now playing for Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia, Firmino’s selfless and intelligent version of the number 9 remains unlike anything seen before or since at Anfield.
20. Romelu Lukaku (Belgium national team)
Romelu Lukaku is Belgium’s all-time top scorer and their undisputed number 9, having represented the Red Devils at four major tournaments with 68 goals in 102 caps.
He has worn the number 9 at clubs including Inter Milan, Manchester United, Chelsea, and Roma, making him one of the most widely travelled strikers of his generation.
Power, pace, and an eye for goal have always defined his game, and at international level the number 9 shirt for Belgium belongs to Lukaku and no one else.
