With 801 goals, is Cristiano Ronaldo the most prolific goalscorer in history?

“What he did is exceptional. You just have to sit back and applaud.”English football legend Alan Shearer paid tribute to Cristiano Ronaldo (36), who on Thursday night wrote a brace with Manchester United against Arsenal (3-2). Two goals allowed him to pass the symbolic bar 800 goals (801 exactly) in 1097 matches played since 2001, that is, 0.73 goals per game! A crazy statistic built mainly by CR7 at Real Madrid, where he scored 450 times. He also scored 129 goals with Manchester United, 101 with Juventus Turin, 5 with Sporting Portugal and 115 goals with the Portuguese national team.

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Given the difficult weeks that his club have been going through recently, the five-a-side Ballon d’Or remained modest at the end of the match. “Our minds are already in the next game, there is no time to celebrate! Today’s victory was very important to get back on track, but there is still a long way to go before we reach our destination… Well done to all my teammates, great spirit tonight!»

But with 801 goals, Cristiano Ronaldo has not yet held the absolute record for the number of goals in the hands of a striker with dual citizenship, Austrian and Czechoslovakian, unknown to the general public, Josef Bikan. Between 1931 and 1957, the international deceived goalkeepers 805 times, especially with Slavia Prague, four small achievements more than the Portuguese, who should thus erase this extraordinary record from the shelves this season.

Behind this European duo, Romario climbed to the podium scoring 772 goals (in 994 games) between 1985 and 2009. If he made Barcelona’s history in 1993 and 1995 with the title of top scorer of the tournament (30 goals), Romario would have been the best. More prolific with PSV (142 goals). Pele, who is sometimes said to have surpassed a thousand goals, scored only 767 official goals. The Brazilian has reportedly scored several hundred unscheduled goals in friendlies.

In fifth place we find Lionel Messi, the only player who is still able to snatch the record from Cristiano Ronaldo in the coming months, but the Argentine is still far behind his great rival because he scored only 755 goals in 942 matches, incl. 672 with Barcelona.

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