Roque Santa Cruz
Be the first in the stands
Paraguaycurrently Nacional AsunciónCareer totals from the ESPN season archive — all competitions, the same numbers The Record below shows (Wikidata's senior spells fill in when the archive is thin — never the youth years, which stay listed on their own below); live World Cup stats from our own match timelines. Individual awards are counted separately from team trophies, so the headline count can't inflate.
Roque Luis Santa Cruz Cantero is a Paraguayan professional footballer who plays as a striker for Paraguayan Primera División club Nacional. He is the record goal scorer and has earned over 100 caps for the Paraguay national team, thus he is regarded as one of the best players in the nation's history. Santa Cruz has scored goals at a professional level in each of the last four decades. He is also one of the few footballers to have made over 1,000 competitive appearances, and only the second Paraguayan to achieve this feat, after Paulo da Silva. — Wikipedia's own summary; its figures are theirs
Honours
33 team trophies · Wikipedia + Wikidata, community-updated| Team honours33 | ||||
| UEFA Champions League | ×1 | 2000–01 | Bayern Munich | |
| Bundesliga | ×5 | 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2005–06 | Bayern Munich | |
| Paraguayan Primera División | ×13 | 1997, 1998, 1999, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 | Olimpia Asunción ·8, Libertad ·5 | |
| DFB-Pokal | ×4 | 1999–2000, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2005–06 | Bayern Munich | |
| Copa Paraguay | ×3 | 2021, 2023, 2024 | Olimpia Asunción ·1, Libertad ·2 | |
| Supercopa Paraguay | ×3 | 2021, 2023, 2024 | Olimpia Asunción ·1, Libertad ·2 | |
| DFB-Ligapokal | ×2 | 2000, 2004 | Bayern Munich | |
| Intercontinental Cup | ×1 | 2001 | Bayern Munich | |
| One of the Players in the World who have Scored Goals in Four Different Decades | ×1 | |||
| Individual honours9 | ||||
| Scoring titles · 3 | ||||
| Copa Paraguay Top Scorer | 2018 | |||
| Paraguayan Primera División Apertura Top Scorer | 2019 | |||
| Paraguayan Primera División Clausura Top Scorer | 2019 | |||
| Player of the year · 3 | ||||
| Paraguayan Footballer of the Year | ×2 | 1999, 2018 | ||
| Blackburn Rovers Player of the Season | 2007–08 | |||
| Monthly awards · 1 | ||||
| Premier League Player of the Month | 2007 | |||
| More honours · 2 | ||||
| FIFA World Cup Most Handsome Player | 2006 | |||
| Pope Francis International Peace Match Invitation | 2014 | |||
| Orders & distinctions2 | ||||
| Special decoration by the Presidency of the Republic | 2010 | |||
| Domingo Martínez de Irala Medal by the Municipality of Asunción | 2010 | |||
The Record
season by season · 60 competition-seasons · ESPN archive| Season | Competition | Team | Apps | Goals | Assists | Shots | YC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | all competitions | all teams | 579 | 147 | 22 | 519 | 23 |
| 2026 | Par 1 | Nacional Asunción | 5 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| 2025 | CONMEBOL Libertadores | Libertad | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | CONMEBOL Libertadores | Libertad | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 2024 | CONMEBOL Sudamericana | Libertad | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 2024 | Par 1 | Libertad | 23 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 3 |
| 2023 | CONMEBOL Libertadores | Libertad | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 2023 | CONMEBOL Sudamericana | Libertad | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Par 1 | Libertad | 29 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | CONMEBOL Libertadores | Libertad | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2022 | Par 1 | Libertad | 39 | 12 | 0 | 12 | 2 |
Career
league apps & goals · Wikidata, community-updated (national-team rows can lag a match or two)| Years | Team | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997–1999 | Club Olimpia | 24 | 13 |
| 1999–2007 | FC Bayern Munich | 155 | 31 |
| 1999–2016 | Paraguay | 112 | 32 |
| 2000–2000 | Paraguay Olympic | 4 | 2 |
| 2005–2006 | FC Bayern Munich II | 6 | 2 |
| 2007–2009 | Blackburn Rovers F.C. | 57 | 23 |
| 2009–2013 | Manchester City F.C. | 20 | 3 |
| 2011–2011 | Blackburn Rovers F.C. | 9 | 0 |
| 2011–2012 | Real Betis | 33 | 7 |
| 2012–2013 | Málaga CF | 31 | 8 |
| 2013–2014 | Málaga CF | 43 | 9 |
| 2015–2016 | Cruz Azul | 10 | 4 |
| 2015–2016 | Málaga CF | 17 | 2 |
| 2016–2021 | Club Olimpia | 148 | 66 |
| 2022–2025 | Club Libertad | 132 | 23 |
| 2026–now | Club Nacional | 11 | 2 |
Youth & development spells — 1 more
| 1999–1999 | Paraguay U20 | 13 | 6 |