RonaldovsMessi
ronaldovsmessi.com

Legends

Where Messi and Ronaldo sit on the all-time goal-scoring ladder.

Verified senior-football totals only — no youth, no friendlies, no self-counts. The list is shorter than you might expect, and the top two are the two we already know.

All-time men's career goal scorers

Verified senior totals

Ranked by career goals in senior, official, recognised football. FIFA and RSSSF are the primary sources where they exist; older totals fall back to RSSSF and the most-cited contemporaneous match archives.

  1. 1

    Cristiano Ronaldo

    Portugal · 2002– · 1,284 senior apps

    971

    All-time men's record holder; verified by FIFA and RSSSF.

  2. 2

    Lionel Messi

    Argentina · 2004– · 1,098 senior apps

    907

    Most career goals at a single club (~670 at Barcelona).

  3. 3

    Josef Bican

    Czechoslovakia/Austria · 1931–1956 · ~530 apps (FIFA-verified)

    805

    FIFA's verified estimate; some sources go higher but were not played in fully professional leagues.

  4. 4

    Romário

    Brazil · 1985–2007 · ~1,000 apps (self-counted)

    772

    Romário's 1,000-goal claim includes futsal and youth-team goals; the verified senior-football number is around 770.

  5. 5

    Pelé

    Brazil · 1956–1977 · 831 apps (FIFA total)

    762

    Includes São Paulo state league and friendlies that FIFA counts; the famous '1,000-goal' total counted youth and exhibition matches.

  6. 6

    Gerd Müller

    West Germany · 1964–1981 · 793 apps

    735

    365 Bundesliga goals — still the league record. Held the calendar-year record (85 in 1972) until Messi's 91 in 2012.

  7. 7

    Ferenc Puskás

    Hungary/Spain · 1943–1966 · 748 apps

    729

    Hungary's golden era and Real Madrid's first dynasty. FIFA renamed the goal-of-the-year award after him.

Why this list looks different to other lists

You will sometimes see Pelé credited with 1,283 career goals. That figure was kept by Pelé and Santos and counts São Paulo state-league matches, military service games, youth-team friendlies and informal exhibitions. It is not what FIFA's own historians or the RSSSF archive use for "senior, official football." On that consistent measure, the top of the men's all-time list is Ronaldo first, Messi second, with Bican, Pelé, Romário, Müller and Puskás all sitting in the 720–810 range behind them. There are good arguments about who the greatest player ever was. There is much less of an argument about who scored the most goals.

Frequently asked

Are Messi and Ronaldo the all-time top scorers?+

Ronaldo is the all-time men's leading goal-scorer (971 senior career goals as of May 2026, verified by FIFA/RSSSF). Messi sits second (~907 senior career goals). All other historical claims either rely on self-counts that include youth and friendly matches, or are not corroborated across multiple primary sources.

Did Pelé score 1,000 goals?+

Pelé scored 1,283 career goals by his own count, but that total includes São Paulo state-league matches, military service games, youth-team games and friendlies. The number that FIFA and RSSSF recognise for senior, official top-flight football is closer to 762.

Where do Messi and Ronaldo rank among the all-time top scorers?+

On verified-senior-football totals, Ronaldo is first all-time and Messi is second. The next-best historical figures — Josef Bican, Pelé, Romário, Gerd Müller, Ferenc Puskás — are all in the 720–810 range, comfortably behind both.

You might also like

Keep reading

Ballon d'Or

Ballon d'Or wins, FIFA Best, Golden Boots and individual awards for Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ballon d'Or wins, FIFA Best, Golden Boots and individual awards for Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Awards by Year

Every Ballon d'Or from 2007 to 2024

Every Ballon d'Or from 2007 to 2024 — who won, and where Messi and Ronaldo finished. Includes the ten-year run nobody else could win the award.

Records

World records and milestones

World records and milestones — Messi and Ronaldo's most notable football achievements compared.