Soccer rewards balance, timing, and technique more than raw size, but every so often a player comes along whose height alone changes how a match gets played. The ten tallest professional players in the world right now all stand 2.01 meters (6'7") or taller, roughly a head above the average outfield player, and their presence in the box turns routine crosses and corners into genuine aerial mismatches. This guide ranks them, then adds a combined all-time ranking of every player, active and retired.
Key Takeaways
- Konstantin Veretynskiy, a 20-year-old Belarusian goalkeeper, is the tallest active professional soccer player in the world right now at 2.10 m (6'10.7").
- Nine of the ten tallest active players are goalkeepers or center-backs, because clubs spot unusually tall teenagers early and steer them toward the positions where reach carries the most value.
- Dan Burn, at 2.01 m, was the joint-tallest outfield player at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, level with Bosnia's Stjepan Radeljić, according to official FIFA squad data.
- The average outfield soccer player stands around 1.81 m, so even the shortest entry on the active list is about 20 centimeters above average.
- In a combined ranking of every player past and present, retired Danish goalkeeper Simon Bloch Jørgensen and active goalkeeper Konstantin Veretynskiy share the top spot at 2.10 m, and active players fill six of the top eight places.
The Top 10 Tallest Soccer Players Right Now
Here is the current top ten as of late 2026. Transfers, injuries, and retirements can shift a list like this within a single season.
Konstantin Veretynskiy
BelarusThe tallest active professional soccer player anywhere in the world right now, by some margin. Veretynskiy only turned 20 in 2026, which makes the goalkeeper at the top of this list its youngest member, with a career and a possible move to a bigger league still ahead of him.
Kjell Scherpen
NetherlandsAn Ajax academy product who moved through Brighton and Sturm Graz before settling at Union Saint-Gilloise. A strong save rate and regular clean sheets have made Scherpen one of the Belgian league's most reliable shot-stoppers this season.
Isaak Touré
FranceOne of only three outfield players on this list. Touré's combination of size and recovery pace has already drawn transfer interest from the Premier League, and at 2.06 m he is the tallest center-back playing regularly in any of Europe's top five leagues.
Denys Tvardovskyi
UkraineOne of the tallest goalkeepers Ukrainian soccer has produced, Tvardovskyi has kept developing at Shakhtar Donetsk even though the domestic league has had to train and compete across shifting venues in recent years.
Kyle Hudlin
EnglandThe only pure striker on this list, and one of the most unusual profiles in world soccer at this height. Hudlin built his name in England's National League and briefly at Huddersfield Town before taking his aerial presence to Vietnam, where his reach in the box is a constant problem for defenders.
Kevin Gadellaa
NetherlandsStill working toward a settled starting role at senior level, Gadellaa is considered one of FC Utrecht's key long-term goalkeeping prospects, and his size is widely seen as a lasting asset.
Florian Wiegele
AustriaWiegele made history in 2026 as the tallest player ever named to a FIFA World Cup squad, edging past the previous record held by Dutch goalkeeper Andries Noppert. He was Austria's third-choice goalkeeper at the tournament and is nicknamed "Langer" ("the tall one") back home.
Lucas Bergström
FinlandSeven years in Chelsea's academy system, a Conference League winner's medal, and now a fresh start in Spanish soccer. Bergström represents Finland at international level and is regarded as one of Scandinavia's more promising young goalkeeping exports.
Pape Sy
SenegalThe tallest goalkeeper currently playing in France's top flight, Sy came through Senegalese soccer and won the Golden Glove at the African Nations Championship before establishing himself as one of Metz's most important players between the posts.
Dan Burn
EnglandOfficial FIFA squad data listed Burn as the joint-tallest outfield player at the 2026 World Cup, level with Bosnia's Stjepan Radeljić. He has become a cult figure at Newcastle for reasons beyond his frame, since few defenders his size can also play left-back and drive forward with the ball.
Honorable Mentions
A handful of other players sit just below the cutoff and are worth knowing about. Three of them share Burn's 2.01 m, which makes the tenth spot effectively a four-way tie, and a single transfer or squad update could shuffle this list:
- Álvaro Montero2.01 m · GK · Colombia NT
- Fraser Forster2.01 m · GK · Newcastle United
- Stjepan Radeljić2.01 m · CB · Bosnia & Herzegovina NT
- Thibaut Courtois2.00 m · GK · Real Madrid
- Saša Kalajdžić2.00 m · FW · Wolverhampton Wanderers
- Mike Penders2.00 m · GK · Belgium NT
Top 10 Tallest Soccer Players of All Time
The ranking above covers active players only. The table below combines every player, past and present, and marks each one as active or retired. Active players' heights come from the 2026 sources listed in the references, and retired players' heights come from each player's Wikipedia profile, cross-checked against other listings. Where sources disagree, the most widely cited figure is shown, and imperial heights are converted from the metric figure. Players at the same height are listed alphabetically by surname, and the table runs to 13 names because five players are level at the 10th-place height of 2.05 m, so cutting any of them would be arbitrary. A few other names appear at similar heights in some online lists, but their figures could not be confirmed from more than one source, so they are left out.
| Photo | Player | Height | Position | Country | Status | Known For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Simon Bloch JørgensenFrem, Accrington Stanley | 2.10 m6'10.7" | Goalkeeper | Denmark | Retired | The height most often cited as the tallest professional player on record |
|
Konstantin VeretynskiySlavia Mozyr | 2.10 m6'10.7" | Goalkeeper | Belarus | Active | Tallest active professional player, aged 20 |
 |
Kristof Van HoutGenk, Standard Liège | 2.08 m6'10" | Goalkeeper | Belgium | Retired | Widely quoted as the world's tallest professional player through the 2010s |
|
Kevin GadellaaFC Utrecht | 2.06 m6'9" | Goalkeeper | Netherlands | Active | Key long-term goalkeeping prospect at FC Utrecht |
|
Kyle HudlinThep Xanh Nam Dinh FC | 2.06 m6'9" | Striker | England | Active | The only striker among the ten tallest active players |
|
Kjell ScherpenUnion Saint-Gilloise | 2.06 m6'9" | Goalkeeper | Netherlands | Active | Ajax academy product and reliable Belgian Pro League shot-stopper |
|
Isaak TouréFC Lorient | 2.06 m6'9" | Center-back | France | Active | Tallest center-back playing regularly in Europe's top five leagues |
|
Denys TvardovskyiShakhtar Donetsk | 2.06 m6'9" | Goalkeeper | Ukraine | Active | One of the tallest goalkeepers Ukrainian soccer has produced |
 |
Tor Hogne AarøyAalesund, JEF United Chiba | 2.05 m6'8.7" | Forward | Norway | Retired | 90 goals in 242 league games for Aalesund |
|
Lucas BergströmRCD Mallorca | 2.05 m6'8.7" | Goalkeeper | Finland | Active | Seven years in Chelsea's academy; Conference League winner's medal |
 |
Vanja IvešaEskişehirspor, Istra 1961 | 2.05 m6'8.7" | Goalkeeper | Croatia | Retired | Oldest player ever in Croatia's top league (age 40) |
|
Florian WiegeleViktoria Plzeň | 2.05 m6'8.7" | Goalkeeper | Austria | Active | Tallest player ever named to a World Cup squad (2026) |
 |
Yang ChangpengChengdu Blades, Henan Jianye | 2.05 mSome sources list 2.09 m | Forward | China | Retired | Dubbed "China's Peter Crouch" during a Bolton trial |
Active players now fill six of the top eight places, so today's game is producing extreme heights at least as often as it did in the past. That reading comes with a caveat: databases record current players far more consistently than they recorded players from earlier eras, so the comparison is approximate. Five more retired players sit just outside the combined ranking. Together with the retired names above, they make up the ten tallest retired players in history:
- Željko Kalac2.02 m · GK · Australia
- Jan Koller2.02 m · FW · Czech Republic
- Stefan Maierhofer2.02 m · FW · Austria
- Nikola Žigić2.02 m · FW · Serbia
- Peter Crouch2.01 m · FW · England
The mix of positions is the other difference between eras. Only one of today's ten tallest active players is a forward, while six of the ten tallest retired players were. One plausible reading is that the classic target man, a tall forward who wins long balls in the air and holds the ball up for teammates, has become less common as tactical styles have changed, while goalkeepers still gain a direct benefit from reach. That is an interpretation of the pattern, since a ranking cannot show why any club picks a particular player.
Why Are the Tallest Players Almost Always Goalkeepers or Center-Backs?
Look down the active list and the pattern jumps out immediately: seven goalkeepers, two center-backs, and exactly one striker. That comes down to a simple selection effect. Reach matters enormously for a goalkeeper covering the top corners of a net, and it matters again for a center-back competing for a header at a corner kick. Clubs and academies notice unusually tall teenagers early and steer them toward exactly these roles, the same way basketball funnels its tallest young athletes toward center. It's a variation on the same idea that comes up whenever the question is whether a sport like basketball actually makes anyone taller: genetics sets the height first, and the sport or position follows.
That same logic explains why an active striker like Kyle Hudlin stands out as such an anomaly. Most positions on a soccer field reward a lower center of gravity and quicker changes of direction, and goalkeeper and center-back are the two spots where height carries no such trade-off.
How These Heights Compare to Everyday Averages
The average outfield soccer player stands around 1.81 m (5'11.3"), already taller than most national averages, since professional soccer selects for above-average height at every level. For a broader sense of where that places these players against general population data, the world ranking of average heights by country puts most national averages, even the tallest (the Netherlands at 6'0"), several inches below every name in the all-time ranking.
At the far end of the scale, these players are still well short of the most extreme heights ever documented. The tallest person in recorded history, Robert Wadlow, reached 2.72 m (8'11"), which is 62 centimeters above the top of the all-time ranking. For his story and the medical background behind extreme height, see who the tallest person in history really was.
Extreme height in adulthood is driven overwhelmingly by genetics, the same starting point covered in how much of a person's height actually comes from their parents.
Final Thoughts
These rankings will keep changing. The active list shifts with every transfer window and injury, and each retirement moves a name from the active column to the retired one in the all-time table. For most people, the practical question is how to reach their own full height potential through good nutrition, sleep, and activity during the growing years.
References
1. Top Soccer Blog. (2026, July 2). Top 10 Tallest Soccer Players In The World (2026). topsoccerblog.com
2. Wego. Tallest players and teams at the World Cup (official FIFA squad heights). blog.wego.com
3. beIN SPORTS. (2026, June 7). The Extremes of the 2026 World Cup. beinsports.com
4. Wikipedia player profiles (retired players): Jørgensen, Van Hout, Aarøy, Iveša, Yang, Kalac, Koller, Maierhofer, Žigić
5. Topend Sports. List of Tallest Football Players in the World. topendsports.com
