A brace refers to two goals scored in a game regardless of when they were scored and the order in which they were scored.
For example, a player can score two goals for his team who end up winning a game 10 – 0. Those goals may be the fifth and eight goals for his team. Those two goals are still referred to as a brace.
Even if the player scored the first and second goals of the 10 – 0 rout, this will be described using the term, “brace”.
From the meaning of the word, you may surmise that the goal scorer “supported” his initial effort with another goal. You wouldn’t be right.
You wouldn’t be wrong either.
I’ll explain how the act of scoring two goals in a soccer match came to be known as a brace, as well as the most prolific brace scorers in the history of the sport.
Why Do They Call It a Brace in Soccer?
Let’s take a trip down history lane for a bit.
In old England, when hunters set out to hunt, it was rare for them to shoot down a pair of their target game.
Say a hunter wanted an antelope, tracked it down, and found one. After staking it out, they lined the antelope up in their sight and, BAM!, shot it dead.
This is usually all the success that hunters of old had. Hunting parties increased the chances of hunters coming back with more than one of the same game.
However, there were some rare occasions when a hunter, exhibiting incredible skill and mastery over his weapon, shot down two antelopes from a group at once.
Sometimes, the hunter could be so skilled in tracking and staking out, that they caught up to another in the group after it had escaped to shoot it down. This skilled hunter was said to have scored a brace.
Soccer strikers are likened to hunters because their aim is to hunt for goals. When they scored two in a game – a rare incident, I must add – there was a need for a colloquial term to describe this.
They chose “brace,” and we’ve been using it ever since.
Who Has More Braces, Ronaldo or Messi?
As soccer expanded and exploded, many strikers began to score braces.
From the 20th century till now, many midfielders have also begun to score more goals and, in turn, more braces.
Midfielders like Bruno Fernandes, Ronaldinho, Kevin De Bruyne, Jude Bellingham, Eberechi Eze, and Cole Palmer, are almost always expected to score goals in modern football, which means they get braces too.
This is why it’s hard to have a real list of players who have scored the most braces in the sport.
Two of the world’s greatest soccer players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, made their names scoring goals, many of which were braces.
In case you don’t know, Messi holds the world record for the most goals scored in a calendar year – 91 goals in 69 games (with another five in friendlies that same year). He scored a lot of braces to be able to rack up these numbers.
Both Ronaldo and Messi have scored over 215 braces in their career, which makes them the players with the most braces in history.
Unfortunately, there is no accurate information on which player has more because braces are rarely carefully recorded.
Final Thoughts
Soccer is a low-scoring sport, which makes it very special for a player to score multiple goals in one game.
However, since goal scoring has been democratized, keeping record of braces has taken a back seat. This is because you can have a defender or a midfielder pop up with two goals in a game thanks to set-piece situations or brilliant teamwork.
Braces are special to players who understand how difficult it is to beat a defense and score goals. Scoring one goal is special. Scoring two? That’s a memory that will stay with players and their fans for a long time.
