Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo just can’t help breaking records, as he has surpassed Brazil legend Pele to become the second-highest goalscorer in history and the highest for an active player.
Juventus took on Udinese in Serie A on Sunday and ran out 4-1 winners with Ronaldo grabbing a brace. The two goals were enough for the 35-year-old to hit 758 career goals.
Pele himself managed a staggering 757 goals during his remarkable career at Santos, New York Cosmos, and the Brazil national team.
Despite this, Ronaldo has managed to overtake the three-time World Cup winner by scoring his 14th goal of the season as he leads the race for Serie A top scorer.
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner also grabbed an assist for Federico Chiesa with a deft pass to make it 2-0 at the Allianz Stadium before Paulo Dybala wrapped up the scoring.
The feat means that Austrian great Josef Bican is the only man standing between Ronaldo and the summit of the all-time goalscoring charts. Bican, also known as Pepi is credited with scoring 805 goals in 530 games, giving him a career average of 1.52 goals per game – a better return than Romario, Lionel Messi and even Ronaldo.
Given his incredible goalscoring exploits since his debut in 2002, Ronaldo will surely back himself to overtake Bican’s long-standing record before he hangs up his boots.
At his current goal-scoring rate, the former Real Madrid striker should be able to catch and surpass Bican in early 2022.
More than half of Ronaldo’s total goals (450) came during his nine-year spell at Real Madrid. The rest have been accumulated during the time spent at Sporting Lisbon (5), Manchester United (118), Juventus (83), and the Portuguese national team (102)
He is also the all-time Champions League top scorer with 132 goals, ahead of Lionel Messi with 118.
The new record comes weeks after Ronaldo’s long time foe Messi had surpassed Pele’s record of most goals scored for a single club with his 644th goal for Barcelona. Santos, however, disputed the achievement claiming that Pele had scored more goals than the recorded figure.
