Cristiano Ronaldo has just become the highest-scoring football player in history – or has he?
The Juventus superstar netted his 760th career goal against Napoli in the Italian Super Cup final on Wednesday night to move clear of legendary Austria-Czech footballer Josef Bican’s official record of 759.
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But according to the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF), Bican is still the highest-scoring footballer ever to play at the top level with 805 goals from 530 games between 1931 and 1955.
Among those goals were 27 for Rapid Vienna’s reserve and amateur teams, hence why many place Bican on 759, but things get even more complicated because records from the Czech second division in 1952 are thought to be missing.
Don’t even get us started on Pele and Romario. Both Brazil legends claim to have scored more than 1,000 career goals, but Pele is generally credited with 757 and Romario with 745 on competitive senior matches alone.
However, the RSSSF has it down as 767 for Pele and 772 for Romario, which would put Ronaldo behind them both despite Wednesday night’s strike.
The only thing we can say with real certainty is that Ronaldo has 760, which is 41 goals more than Lionel Messi, who has 719.
That we know, because goals have been added up clearly and properly during their careers, so Ronaldo might be the highest-scoring player of all-time, we just can’t really say for sure.
At 35, Ronaldo may yet overtake Bican’s unofficial record anyway as he continues to score relentlessly for Juventus in an incredible career which has seen him net more than a century of goals for Manchester United and Portugal, as well as 450 at Real Madrid.
The former Sporting Lisbon prodigy has taken a giant stride towards cementing himself as the greatest player of all time.
As usual, Ronaldo picked the biggest stage to make history, opening the scoring in the 64th minute of Juve’s 2-0 victory over Napoli in the Italian Super Cup, giving Andrea Pirlo his first piece of silverware as manager.
Just last week, Ronaldo made it 15 goals in Serie A this season with his stoppage time strike during Juve’s 3-1 win over Sassulo.
It was only the 16th match of the season, meaning Ronaldo has made the joint-fastest start to a league campaign by any player in Juventus history.
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The last player to score 15 goals in the Old Lady’s opening 16 league games was Welshman John Charles’, who did so 63 years ago during the 1957/58 campaign.
Charles, who also played for Leeds and Roma, died aged 72 in 2004. He was nicknamed the ‘Gentle Giant’ and bagged more than 100 goals for Juventus over a five-year spell.
In this form, who knows how many goals Ronaldo could finish his incredible career with?
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