Lionel Messi has now moved to second place in the list of the greatest goal scorers after scoring five goals against Estonia in an international friendly and having C-Ronaldo On First.
IFFHS statistics now indicate that Messi moved above Pele with his latest returns. Pele scored 762 goals during his impressive career. Messi now has 764 goals collectively for Barcelona, PSG and the international team.
The two South Americans have scored more goals than anyone save for Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese forward was equally on good form in the UEFA Nations League as he bagged a brace to move to 813 goals.
Ronaldo’s exploits have come during his stays at Sporting Lisbon, the two spells at Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus. He is the all-time top scorer for Real Madrid with 450 goals as well as the international top scorer with 117 goals.
Apart from Messi, Ronaldo and Pele, we take a look at the rest of the great names that make it into the top 10.
- Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) -813 goals
- Lionel Messi (Argentina) – 764 goals
- Pele (Brazil) – 762 goals
- Romario (Brazil) – 755 goals
- Ferenc Puskas (Hungary) – 729 goals
- Josef Bican (Austria) – 720 goals
- Jimmy Jones (Northern Ireland) – 647 goals
- Gerd Muller (Germany) – 634 goals
- Eusebio (Portugal) – 619 goals
- Joe Bambrick (Northern Ireland) – 616 goals
The only active players who make it to the top 23 alongside Messi and Ronaldo are Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski, the widely-travelled Zlatan Ibrahimovic who is currently with Serie A champions AC Milan and Luis Suarez who is a free agent after being released by Atletico Madrid.
