Lionel Messi always higher. The captain of FC Barcelona continues to push the limits of his sport. Tuesday evening, against Atlético de Madrid (2-2), the Argentinian transformed a penalty from a panenka. A historic goal. The 700th of the career of the sixfold Ballon d’Or. At just 33 years old and 862 leg matches, Messi scored 630 times for Barça and 70 times for his country. A monstrous record which places him in 2nd position of the best scorers in activity. Before him, Cristiano Ronaldo has 728 goals. But the Juve star is two years older and has played 143 more games. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (540 goals, 907 games), Luis Suarez (472/637) and Robert Lewandowski (466/697) complete the Top 5.
Messi with CR7 in the “700 club”
Seeing Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi dominate this ranking is anything but surprising. But while the Argentinian is more and more considered as the GOAT (greatest player of all time), where to locate it in the History of the scorers? According to the RSSSF (Rec Sport Soccer Statistics Fundation), a statistics firm, only seven players have reached the 700 career goal mark. Before Lionel Messi, CR7 joined the “club of 700” in October 2019 after a goal scored with Portugal against Ukraine in the framework of the qualifiers for theEuro 2020 postponed to 2021. Bayern and German football legend Gerd Müller of the 1970 Ballon d’Or “planted” 735 goals in 793 games, a rate of 0.92 per game (versus 0.81 for Messi).
Puskas’ huge goal / match ratio
The Argentine will still have to score 46 goals if he wants to integrate the top 4 and join Ferenc Puskas. Between 1943 and 1966, at a time when we scored a lot more but we played a lot less, the Hungarian striker from Real Madrid scored 746 times in 754 games (source RSSSF). Or an average even higher than Müller’s of 0.98 goals per game.
Peeled ahead of a stranger?
What about the podium? In front of Puskas, we take a step back in time, until the 90s. A decade marked by Romario madness. With the Seleçao or club jersey, notably at Barça (1993-1995), the 1994 world champion totaled 772 goals in 993 games. If the stats of the Brazilian are verifiable, difficult on the other hand to know which of Josef Bican or Skin is the greatest goalscorer of all time. You are probably already wondering who is the first city.
Born in 1913 when Austria and Hungary formed the Austro-Hungarian empire, this striker who died in 2001 played for 27 years (1927-1955) with two different countries. He thus competes in the 1934 World Cup with Austria before defending the colors of the late Czechoslovakia. Everywhere he plants. Sacred 12 times top scorer in the Czechoslovak championship, he would total 805 goals.
What about Pele? Nicknamed “the man with 1,000 goals”, the Brazilian King counts according to the Book of Records 1,279 career goals. A questionable and disputed figure. If Pelé boasts of having crossed the mythical 1,000 goals mark, some would have been registered in unofficial matches. According to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics, it would officially count “only” 767. A figure that remains monumental … and achievable for Lionel Messi.
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