Most goals in football history: Cristiano Ronaldo's quest for 1000

With Cristiano Ronaldo seemingly hell-bent on reaching 1000 career strikes, we take a look at who has scored the most goals in football history.

Just 25 players across the history of the game have surpassed 500 career strikes with Luis Suarez the latest to pass the landmark.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi rather unsurprisingly top the list for the most goals of all-time with 937 and 865 respectively.

It was 2021 when Ronaldo surpassed Pele's total of 762, a record that he held for over 40 years from compatriot Romario who managed to find the net an impressive 756 times.

There is much debate over the amount of goals that Josef Bican managed to hit in his career with numbers ranging between his official number of 722 and an unproven tally of 802.

Polish superstar Robert Lewandowski is one of three active players in the top 10 with 673 goals during a career that has taken him to numerous top clubs in Europe including Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.

Has anyone ever scored 1000 goals?

Well yes and no.

Brazilian superstar Pele claims to have scored 1,283 goals throughout his career but many of the games that these goals were scored in include friendlies and unofficial matches.

The World Cup winner isn't the only Brazilian who claims to have reached four-figures with Romario celebrating 1,000 career strikes in 2007. A tally that he later admitted included friendlies.

Most goals in football history

Rank	Player	Goals
1.	Cristiano Ronaldo	938
2.	Lionel Messi	865
3.	Pele	762
4.	Romario	756
5.	Ferenc Puskas	725
6.	Josef Bican	722
7.	Robert Lewandowski	673
8.	Jimmy Jones	639
9.	Gerd Muller	634
10.	Joe Bambrick	626

Will Cristiano Ronaldo reach 1000 goals?

As it stands, Cristiano Ronaldo is just 62 goals shy of reaching the unprecedented landmark.

In order to reach his 1000th strike - Ronaldo will surely have to play for at least another two seasons.

The former Real Madrid and Manchester United forward netted 43 goals for club and country in 2024/25 so a continuation of that scoring rate would see Portugal's captain extend his career beyond 42 years old.

35 of those goals came for Al-Nassr, and he has all but confirmed his stay at the Saudi Pro League outfit for at least one more season.