The forgotten Arsenal legend Cristiano Ronaldo has just surpassed in football’s all-time goalscoring charts
Cristiano Ronaldo has just scored a goal that takes him up to third place in football’s all-time top goalscorers list, surpassing a forgotten great of English football who represented Arsenal, Crystal Palace and Fulham.
The 40-year-old forward scored the 935th goal of his professional career in Al-Nassr’s 4-1 AFC Champions League thrashing of Yokohama FM, which takes him one beyond the official tally set by former Gunners striker Ronnie Rooke.
One statistical organisation – the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) – recognises Ronaldo as football’s all-time top goalscorer, but a different body the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) uses a different methodology and puts him third.
Who was Ronnie Rooke?
You may (not) remember Rooke’s name cropping up when Jamie Vardy won the Premier League Golden Boot back in 2019-20.
Vardy had become the oldest player to end up top scorer in England’s top flight since a 37-year-old Rooke scored 33 league goals for Arsenal all the way back in 1948.
The striker still holds Arsenal’s post-war record for the most goals scored in a league campaign, and his tally that year fired the club to their first title since the Second World War. He memorably scored four on the final day in an 8-0 thrashing of Grimsby Town.
But his wildly successful two-and-a-half years at Highbury was only a short chapter in Rooke’s legendary career. He started out in 1931 at his hometown club Guildford City and went on to score goals at a prolific rate for Woking, Crystal Palace and Fulham before his move to Arsenal.
Even after leaving Arsenal, he continued playing well into his forties, returning to Crystal Palace and seeing out his career closer to home with stints at Bedford Town, Haywards Heath Town, Addlestone and a second stint with Bedford.
A quick perusal of his Wikipedia displays a breakdown of his league goals, in which he averaged a near goal-a-game average over the course of 30 years – but that total comes to just 400.
But the RSSSF includes a full breakdown of his total 934 career goals in 1030 matches in all competitions, from the top flight to non-league.
Alongside Rooke’s 70 goals in 94 matches for Arsenal, they count no fewer than 291 goals from his decade-long spell at Fulham, 101 for Bedford Town and plenty more elsewhere.
Who can Ronaldo surpass next?
“Guys, let’s enjoy the moment, the present,” Ronaldo said after scoring a brace in Al-Nassr’s 3-1 victory over Al Hilal in the Riyadh derby last month.
“I’m not following 1,000 [goals]. If it’s yes, perfect. If it’s not, it’s not.”
The veteran had previously made no secret of his ambition to make it to 1000 goals before he hangs up his boots, which is certainly possible amid reports that a new two-year contract extension is imminent.
If Ronaldo does make it to 1000 goals, he’ll be recognised as football’s all-time top goalscorer by both the RSSSF and IFFHS.
Slavia Prague icon Josef Bican is next in Ronaldo’s sights. The former Czechoslovakia international, who holds the record for the most goals scored in a single season, scored 950 goals in his career as recognised by the RSSSF.
Ronaldo is unlikely to surpass Bican’s tally before the end of the 2024-25 campaign, but he ought to do so next season if he continues scoring at his current rate.
The name at the top of the list is relatively unknown German forward Erwin Helmchen, who played between 1924 and 1951 in the pre-professional era, before the formation of the Bundesliga.
The RSSSF count Helmchen’s total goals tally at 989 from just 582 matches, the vast majority of which were for PSV Chemnitz.