The first player ever to score a hat-trick (three or more goals in a match) for Pakistan in an international football match was Masood Fakhri. He achieved the feat in the 1954 Asian Games held in Manila, Philippines against Singapore on 2 May 1954, at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, where Pakistan won the match by 6–2. [1] [2] [3] [4] He completed the hat-trick in 5 minutes, scoring at the 42nd, 43rd and 47th minutes of the match. [5] The next player to score a hat-trick was Qayyum Changezi a year later at the 1955 Asian Quadrangular Football Tournament, although he scored two goals of the match through penalty. [6] [7]
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Muhammad Umer is the only recorded Pakistani footballer to have scored a hat-trick more than once against a full international side. Umer first achieved the feat in a friendly match against Singapore on 17 May 1958, where both teams reportedly fielded their main probable teams as preparation for the 1958 Asian Games. [8] [9] [10] On 9 December 1959 during the 1960 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Umer scored another hat-trick in a 4–1 victory against Iran. [11] The next year, Moosa Ghazi scored thrice in a 7–0 record victory against Thailand at the 1960 Merdeka Tournament. [12] [13] In 1967, inside-left forward Abdul Jabbar surpassed the hat-trick number barrier after scoring four goals in a single match against Turkey at the 1967 RCD Cup. The striker Muhammad Ali Shah managed to score all three goals against Malaysia in a 3–2 win during the 1981 King's Cup on 13 November 1981. [14] [15] During the 1984 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Sharafat Ali scored thrice in a 4–1 victory against North Yemen. [16]
After the 20th century, Gohar Zaman became first Pakistani footballer to score a hat-trick in a FIFA World Cup qualification match during the 2002 World Cup qualifiers. [17] [18] [19] [20] He completed the hat-trick within 40 minutes against Sri Lanka in a 3–3 draw. [21] After several years, Pakistan tied its previous all-time highest record victory against Thailand in 1960, after Muhammad Qasim scored three times against Guam in a 9–2 win at the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup qualification, where the national team scored the highest number of goals in a match. [22] [23] A year later, Safiullah Khan scored four goals in a single match against Brunei at the 2010 AFC Challenge Cup qualification on 6 April 2009. [24] [25] [26] [27] The same year, Pakistan earned another record 7–0 victory at the 2009 SAFF Championship, where Arif Mehmood scored three times against Bhutan. [28] [29] [30] This is also the most recent instance of a Pakistani player scoring a hat-trick in an international football match.
As of 26 March 2024, Pakistan have conceded nineteen hat-tricks, the most recent being scored by Musa Al-Taamari in a 0–7 defeat by Jordan at the 2026 World Cup qualification. Masoud Boroumand of Iran was the first player to score a hat-trick against Pakistan, on Pakistan's international debut in 1950. [31]
