Ronaldo 122, Messi 102, Neymar 77: how modern players are smashing international goals records
The latest round of matches saw a number of new marks set by the game's top stars
This international break will be remembered for a few things. Argentina’s first fixture at home since their World Cup win saw spectacular scenes in the country. Other nations started fresh projects under new coaches, including Portugal and Spain. And in beating the latter, Scotland secured their best result in many years. Meanwhile, there were also a number of new goalscoring records.
Lionel Messi hit his 100th goal for Argentina and moved up to 102 following his hat-trick against Curaçao on Tuesday night. Cristiano Ronaldo also added four more across two Euro 2024 qualifiers to extend his record tally to 122. Harry Kane became England’s all-time scorer outright with his 54th for the Three Lions in their win in Italy and then made it 55 by netting against Ukraine. And Romelu Lukaku bagged a hat-trick for Belgium in their 3-0 victory against Sweden, before adding his 72nd international goal in a 3-2 friendly win over Germany.
International scoring records are not only being broken, they are getting obliterated. Even Pelé’s mark of 77 goals for Brazil is about to be beaten – because Neymar’s next strike will be his 78th for the Seleção. And had the Paris Saint-Germain forward not been injured, he probably would have done it already.
There are a number of reasons for all this. First of all, there are more international fixtures now than ever before. Pelé’s 77 goals for Brazil came in just 92 appearances. Neymar has hit his 77 in 124 games. And of course, Pelé won three World Cups. Neymar’s only trophy with the national team at senior level was a Confederations Cup in 2013. When Brazil won the Copa América in 2019, he was missing through injury. Many of his goals have also come in friendlies, and although his scoring ratio is impressive (0.62 per game), it is behind the other four players in the top five: Pelé has 77 at 0.82 per game; Ronaldo 62 at 0.63; Romário 55 at 0.77; Zico 48 at 0.68.
Previously, it was unusual for a player to reach 100 caps. Those days are gone. Cristiano Ronaldo set a new record in this latest international break by playing his 197th and 198th games for Portugal. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner scored two against Liechtenstein and two more versus Luxembourg in Euro 2024 qualifying. Of his world-record total of 122, more than 50 have come against Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, North Korea and Qatar.
Eusébio’s first goal for Portugal was against Luxembourg. The legendary forward also hit four past North Korea, but that was in a World Cup quarter-final. The Mozambique-born forward netted 41 times in total for Portugal in 64 matches and when Ronaldo overtook him in 2013, he said: “It is not right to compare me with Cristiano Ronaldo. I scored my goals in 60 matches. Now, the players play a different number of games. Now, it is much easier to score a goal because, in the past, we were not playing against weak teams like Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein. Such comparisons make me sad.”
Ronaldo now has almost three times as many goals for Portugal as Eusébio, who passed away in 2014, and is an unbelievable 75 clear of the nation’s second-highest scorer: Pauleta (47). Of course, games played and opponents faced is only part of it: Cristiano’s insatiable appetite for records and goals, plus his extraordinary dedication to fitness, have kept him at the top for over two decades. He has now scored in 20 different calendar years for Portugal.
And while Messi is still scoring for Argentina, Ronaldo will be keen to continue, even at the age of 38. Leo is the younger man at 35 and is only 20 goals behind the Portuguese. His hat-trick against Curaçao took him over 100 after a goal against Panama last week. Those nations are not exactly world powers, either, but every elite forward has a number of goals against the smaller sides. And South America’s World Cup qualifiers are tough.
Messi’s 102 goals have come in 174 matches for the Albiceleste. He has long surpassed the nation’s previous top scorer, Gabriel Batistuta, but Batigol hit his at a superior rate (0.71 per match compared to Messi’s 0.59). And in the 1960s, Luis Artime scored 24 in 25 for Argentina at almost a goal per game. Diego Maradona, meanwhile, netted 34 in 91 appearances at international level.
Kane’s 55 for England leave him clear at the top of the Three Lions’ list and the Tottenham striker suggested this week that he too could go on to score 100 international goals. His 55 have arrived in 82 games, meaning his ratio is far better than Wayne Rooney’s 53 in 120, with or without penalties. Still, though, it is behind Jimmy Greaves’ 44 in 57 games between 1959 and 1967 and Nat Lofthouse’s 30 in 33 in the 1950s.
Lukaku is perhaps an outlier. His 72 goals for Belgium in 106 appearances mean he tops the list in terms of both the number netted and the scoring rate. As is to be expected, a number of those were converted against smaller nations, including a hat-trick in a 9-0 win over Gibraltar in 2017. And many will remember how he missed a series of sitters against Croatia as Belgium exited the 2022 World Cup in the group stages. Nevertheless, his tally is impressive.
So many other legends have been overtaken. Johan Cruyff’s 33 goals for the Netherlands have him down in joint ninth position for the Oranje, with Robin van Persie in first. Michel Platini is fourth on France’s list and Thierry Henry second as Olivier Giroud tops it, although Kylian Mbappé will soon surpass them all. For Germany, Miroslav Klose overtook the great Gerd Müller in 2014, though his ratio was not even half as good as Der Bomber: 0.52 per game compared to 1.10.
The sheer amount of games played these days, the superior fitness and conditioning, plus better boots, pitches and officiating, and the lower cost and accessibility for travel, have allowed modern-day footballers to surpass the legends on the goalscoring charts. And although it is naturally difficult to compare different eras in football, the very best players would be able to adapt. As for deciding which are the greatest goalscorers of them all, it is definitely worth looking at the ratios and not just the number of times they have scored.
Great article. It is also worth mentioning that Messi scored an astonishing 47% (48 goals out of 102) of his international goals in friendly matches (most of them against teams like Estonia, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Hong Kong, etc.), while Ronaldo scored only 16% (20 goals out of 122) of his international goals in friendly matches (weaker teams or not).
Great piece