Anything you can do: Football icon Cristiano Ronaldo beats Pele’s official goalscoring tally to move into second in all-time list
A double in Juventus's 4-1 Serie A win against Udinese on Sunday saw Cristiano Ronaldo surge past Brazil icon Pele in the all-time goalscoring ranks, making the Portugal captain the second highest marksman in football history.
Ronaldo opened the scoring with a sweetly-struck effort from an Aaron Ramsey pass before setting up a second for Federico Chiesa just after half-time.
The striker's second goal, steered past Juan Musso with 20 minutes remaining, was the 35-year-old's 14th in just 11 league games so far this season - and the 758th of his career, moving him one strike ahead of football legend Pele.
Pele scored 757 goals in a career with Santos, NY Cosmos and Brazil, with Ronaldo's exploits for Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus now standing him in second-place in the all-time rankings behind Austrian-Czech player Josef Biscan, who is thought to have scored at least 805 times between 1931 and 1955.
And CR7 hits 758 to become the second-highest goalscorer of all-time!
Needs one more to equal Josef Bican to reign supreme at the top.
There is, however, some debate as to Biscan's truly tally of career goals, with some suggesting that he recorded 759 - meaning that Ronaldo would currently remain just one goal behind the record ahead of games with AC Milan and Sassuolo this week.
As for Ronaldo's impressive array of career strikes, more than half of them came in his nine-year spell at the Santiago Bernabeu in the famous white strip of Real Madrid.
Ronaldo broke Pele's record just days after Lionel Messi surpassed the Brazilian's mammoth total for a single club, when his 644th goal for Barcelona late last year inched him past Pele's generally-accepted number of goals for Santos.
So @Cristiano has beaten @Pele’s record for career goals with his 758th strike. That’s about 42 goals a season for 18 years. Mind-blowing. 👏🏻👏🏻
The Brazilian club have questioned the figures and said that Pele's goals in friendly matches should also be included - something which would greatly increase his career tally.
Messi, meanwhile, sits sixth in the all-time goalscoring rankings with 711 goals - nine behind Germany's Gerd Muller.
And it seems somewhat appropriate that Ronaldo and Messi, the two standout players of their or practically any other generation, are duelling for all-time records and rubbing shoulders with some of the game's legendary names in the process.
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