Cristiano Ronaldo Passes Josef Bican as Soccer's All-Time Leading Goal Scorer
January 20, 2021
In the longstanding debate between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to determine the better of the two stars, Ronaldo added a pretty impressive achievement to his resume.
The Juventus star scored off a corner in the 64th minute of the Italian Super Cup against Napoli. In doing so, he set a record for the most official goals by one player.
CBS Sports provided a breakdown of where he scored all 760 of his professional goals:
There's likely to be some debate about Ronaldo's record, at least from Brazil.
In December, Messi logged his 644th goal for Barcelona to pass Pele and set the all-time mark for most goals at one club. Brazilian side Santos responded by saying Pele should be credited with 1,091 career goals (643 in competitive fixtures and 448 in friendlies).
Still, Ronaldo's achievement is a testament to his prodigious talent and how he adapted his game to become one of the sport's most lethal finishers.
In six seasons at Manchester United, the five-time Ballon d'Or winner finished with 30-plus goals on one occasion. He did that six times in nine years at Real Madrid. His goals per 90 minutes average more than doubled from 0.52 to 1.12 between the two clubs, per FBref.
Despite being in his mid-30s, he hasn't slowed down too much at Juventus. His 31 goals were second to only Lazio's Ciro Immobile, who registered 36.
By the time he hangs up his boots, the Portuguese star should have comfortably surpassed 800 goals, setting a pretty high bar for future generations to come.
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