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] His goals came 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 Colombo Cup, 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, although there is also some conjecture on the status of several games regarding recognition by FIFA as "A" internationals in the early years. 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 same year, Musa Ghazi scored thrice in a 7–0 record victory against Thailand at the 1960 Merdeka Tournament. [12] [13] During the 1984 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Sharafat Ali scored thrice in a 4–1 victory against North Yemen. [14] Pakistan also scored considerable goals in a single match in the 20th century where the goals of Pakistani players remain unrecorded in several matches till date (see Pakistan national football team results (1950–1989)). [lower-alpha 1]
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. [15] [16] [17] [18] He completed the hat-trick within 40 minutes against Sri Lanka in a 3–3 draw. [19] After several years, Pakistan tied it's 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. [20] [21] A year later, Safiullah Khan surpassed the hat-trick number barrier after scoring four goals in a single match against Brunei at the 2010 AFC Challenge Cup qualification on 6 April 2009. [22] [23] [24] [25] The same year, Pakistan earned another record 7–0 victory at the 2009 SAFF Championship, where Arif Mehmood scored three times against Bhutan. [26] [27] [28] 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 eighteen 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. [29]
