On March 14th, in the Italian Serie A match Cagliari-Juventus, which ended with a score of 1-3, Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick and reached 770 career goals in official matches, overcoming the myth of Brazilian and World football Pele. The Brazilian, denying several times that he was overtaken by CR7, finally admitted that he was overtaken.
Anyway, what is the ranking of footballers by number of goals scored in official matches? The following top 10 will try to answer the question; this ranking excludes from the total score the goals scored in the youth competitions, both for clubs and national teams, to align the current and recent eras to past ones, in which there were no youth and under 21/23 teams for the Olympic tournaments. Here is the list of the best all-time scorers.
1. Josef Bican (AUT / CSR / Bohemia and Moravia), 820 goals scored between 1931-1955
2. Cristiano Ronaldo (POR), 770 goals scored between 2002 and today
3. Pelé (BRA), 757 goals scored between 1957-1977
4. Romário (BRA), 747 goals scored between 1985-2009
5. Lionel Messi (ARG), 743 goals scored between 2003-present
6. Gerd Müller (GER), 729 goals scored between 1963-1981
7. Ferenc Puskás (HUN-ESP), 704 goals scored between 1943-1966
8. Abe Lenstra (NED), 684 goals scored between 1936-1963
9. Erwin Helmchen (GER), 631 goals scored between 1924-1951
10. Eusébio (POR), 620 goals scored between 1957-1979
Which players do you think currently have the potential to make it into at least the top 10? Will Ronaldo be able to overtake Bican and become the most prolific player ever in official matches?
