Ronaldo Has the Most Goals in Football History. At the Same Age, Messi Is Ahead

Most goals in football history: the top 25

Official matches, here and throughout, means senior league, cup and continental club games plus full internationals, friendlies between national teams included. Club friendlies, reserve teams (Messi's 11 goals for Barcelona B and C) and youth internationals are out. FIFA keeps no official list, so the table follows Wikipedia's count of top-level goals, based on research by the IFFHS, a soccer statistics group; we rebuilt the two leaders' totals goal by goal.

Six of the top 25 are still playing. Ronaldo, 41, plays for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia; his last official match was on October 29, when a hat-trick took him to 985 by the Saudi Pro League's count, and he was not in the squad on November 2. Messi, 39, scored the winner for Inter Miami at New England on November 1, his 26th MLS goal of 2026. Miami, second in the MLS Eastern Conference table, have their next MLS game on November 7.

Domestic cups move the middle of the list. Northern Ireland's Jimmy Jones, Joe Bambrick and Glenn Ferguson have 286, 253 and 241 cup goals; nobody else in the top 25 has more than 137. In league goals alone, Ronaldo leads Pelé by four, 608 to 604, with Messi third on 579.

Messi vs Ronaldo goals at the same age

Ronaldo is 2 years and 139 days older, so the headline compares careers of different lengths. Age for age, Messi has been ahead since he was 19. His lead peaked at 152 when he was 25 and has narrowed to 42.

From 35 to 39 years and 132 days, Ronaldo scored 173 and Messi 168. The 90 goals Ronaldo has scored since June 16, 2024, at ages Messi has not reached, turn a 42-goal deficit into a 48-goal lead. Messi also got to every hundred younger: 500 goals at 28, against Ronaldo at 30, and 900 at 38 years and 267 days, against 39 years and 213 days. RSSSF's lists, which add youth and reserve goals, point the same way: before 30, Messi 593 and Ronaldo 483; after 30, through July 19, Ronaldo 511 and Messi 355.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi career goals by competition

Messi has played 159 fewer official games and scored 48 fewer goals, so his rate is higher overall, 0.79 per game to Ronaldo's 0.73.

Messi scores more per game in all three kinds of club competition. Ronaldo's edge is in competitive internationals, 124 goals to 71. Friendlies run the other way: 55 of Messi's 126 goals for Argentina came in them, against 22 of Ronaldo's 146 for Portugal, so without international friendlies Ronaldo's lead grows from 48 to 81, 963 to 882.

Penalties work in Ronaldo's favor. He has scored 184 from the spot, 18.7 percent of his goals, and Messi 115, 12.3 percent, so without penalties Messi leads, 822 to 801. League goals are the same share for both, about 62 percent.

• Ronaldo, 839 club goals: Real Madrid 450, Manchester United 145, including 31 in the 2007-08 Premier League, Al-Nassr 138, Juventus 101, Sporting CP 5
• Messi, 811 club goals: Barcelona 672, Inter Miami 107, Paris Saint-Germain 32

These are counts of goals, not a ranking of players. For honors, see the Ballon d'Or list, where Messi has eight and Ronaldo five, and our lists of Champions League and World Cup winners.

How many goals has Ronaldo scored: 985 or 984

One of the 985 is disputed. On October 23, in Al-Nassr's 3-1 win at Al Faisaly, Ronaldo jumped for a 49th-minute free kick that went in off defender Andrei Girotto, and replays do not settle whether he touched it. The Saudi Pro League credits Ronaldo, going by the referee's report, while Opta, SofaScore, FotMob and Flashscore and ESPN's match data list an own goal, which makes 984.

A 2010 goal went the other way: La Liga and UEFA gave Pepe a goal against Real Sociedad that Marca gave Ronaldo, and it is not in the 985. We follow the competition's organizer both times.

Top goal scorers of all time under other counting rules

Change the rule and the leader can change. RSSSF, the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation, keeps these lists, updated through July 19, 2026:

• Official matches at the top level: Ronaldo 978, Messi 921, Pelé 770
• Official matches at every level: Ronaldo 994, Erwin Helmchen 989 or more, Josef Bican 950 or more, Messi 948
• League goals, top leagues: Ronaldo 600, Messi 565, Bican 526; with regional and reserve leagues, Ronnie Rooke leads with 773 or more
• All matches at the top level, friendlies included: Pelé 1,274, Bican 1,081, Ronaldo 1,025, Ferenc Puskás 1,011
• All matches at any level: Lajos Tichy 1,917, whose seasonal figures RSSSF calls conjectural, Bican 1,813 or more, Helmchen 1,611 or more

The older totals are the most contested:

• Pelé: 762 in our table and 770 or 778 on RSSSF's official lists. Guinness World Records gives 1,279 in 1,363 games, exhibitions included, and Santos claims 1,091 for the club, counting 448 goals in friendlies, against 643 official ones
• Romário: 756 in our table and 785 on RSSSF's list. He celebrated a 1,000th goal in 2007; RSSSF's all-matches count is 1,002, and FIFA kept him at 929, according to Wikipedia
• Bican: 722 in our table and 743 at RSSSF's top level, with 518 league goals, per UEFA. FIFA has 805, and the Czech FA has 821 in official matches
• Arthur Friedenreich: Guinness mentions "an undocumented 1,329 goals"

Active players in the top 25, and the distance to 1,000

Ronaldo needs 15 goals for 1,000, or 16 on the data providers' count. At his career rate of 0.73 per official game that is 21 games, and at this season's nine in 12 it is 20. Messi needs 63, or 80 games at 0.79. That is arithmetic, not a prediction. RSSSF's wider list, which counts youth internationals, had Ronaldo on 994 on July 19, before his nine for Al-Nassr since.

Others still playing, through November 3 and on the same rule; Mbappé and Haaland scored again on November 4:

• Robert Lewandowski, 38, Chicago Fire: 708, seventh, 14 behind Bican and 54 behind Pelé
• Luis Suárez, 39, Inter Miami: 616, 12th
• Harry Kane, 33, Bayern Munich: 527, 22nd; at his age Ronaldo had 653 and Messi 705. He is second on the Premier League's all-time list, with 213
• Karim Benzema, 38, Al-Hilal: 524, 23rd
• Neymar, 34, Santos: 461, 45 short of 25th place
• Kylian Mbappé, 27, Real Madrid: 451, 55 short; at his age Messi had 452 and Ronaldo 329
• Erling Haaland, 26, Manchester City: 375; at his age Messi had 361 and Ronaldo 235

Most international goals: men and women

The record for international goals, male or female, belongs to Christine Sinclair of Canada, with 190, ahead of Abby Wambach's 184 and Mia Hamm's 158 for the United States; all three have finished their international careers. Ronaldo's 146 is the men's record, ahead of Messi's 126 and Ali Daei's 108. Messi's count is final: he played his last international on October 6, scoring a penalty against Benin.

Most goals in soccer history: frequently asked questions

Who has the most goals in football history? Cristiano Ronaldo, with 985 in official matches through November 3, 2026. Lionel Messi is second with 937 and Pelé third with 762.

How many goals has Ronaldo scored? 985 in 1,343 official games: 839 for clubs and 146 for Portugal. Data providers that treat his October 23 goal as an own goal have 984.

How many goals has Messi scored? 937 in 1,184 official games: 811 for clubs and 126 for Argentina, through Inter Miami's game of November 1, 2026.

Who has more goals, Messi or Ronaldo? Ronaldo, by 48. Messi scores more per game, 0.79 to 0.73, and has more goals at the same age and more without penalties.

Did Pelé score more than 1,000 goals? Yes, if friendlies count: Guinness World Records gives 1,279. In official matches, the lists we read give 762 to 778.

How this was built: both totals are summed by script from the career tables on Ronaldo's and Messi's Wikipedia pages and their lists of international goals (Ronaldo, Messi), then rebuilt goal by goal from the match boxes of 50 club-season pages, which give dates, competitions and penalty marks. The two agree season by season and by competition. Exceptions: Messi's 16 goals of 2007-08 went in by season and two Copa del Rey goals of 2007 by date. UEFA's count of its own club competitions, 145 and 132, matches ours. Penalties match an independent list date by date, after we corrected three marks on Ronaldo's goal list using the same page and ESPN. Matches through November 3, 2026, were checked against ESPN's API. The other names in the top 25 come from Wikipedia's table, checked against RSSSF's page. See our methodology. Data collected November 4, 2026.