Pele’s goal record: Numbers that justify why Brazilian legend is 'King'

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known to the world as Pele, is arguably the greatest footballer to ever walk the planet.

Pele, often referred to as the King of Football, is the only player in history to have won three FIFA World Cup titles, in 1958, 1962 and 1970, and boasts a cabinet full of trophies, won for both club and country.

But the attribute which truly cements Pele’s legacy as a contender for the greatest of all time (GOAT) title is his astonishing goal-scoring record.

Pele’s goals tally in football

So, how many goals has Pele scored in his football career?

The answer isn’t a straightforward one.

Due to the unstructured and decentralised record-keeping in football during the 1950s to 70s, an era Pele dominated, the exact number of goals the Brazil legend scored in his career, especially at club level, has been a highly-debated issue among statisticians and fans alike.

Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Pele goals in international football

Pele scored 77 goals in 92 international football matches, making him Brazil’s all-time top scorer. With international records even from that era far more well-organised, these numbers are undisputed.

The tally also puts Pele as the 13th-highest scorer of all-time in international football.

At the FIFA World Cup, Pele has scored 12 goals in 14 matches played across four editions - the second-most by any Brazilian player in the quadrennial showpiece after Ronaldo. The three-time World Cup winner is also joint-sixth in the list of highest goal scorers at football World Cups.

Pele is also the youngest footballer to have ever scored a goal in the men’s FIFA World Cup. He netted in the quarter-finals against Wales in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden when he was just 17 years and 239 days old.

The very next match, the semi-finals against France, saw Pele became the youngest to score a hat-trick in the World Cup. With a brace against hosts Sweden in the final, Pele became the youngest player to ever score in a football FIFA World Cup final.

Over six decades have passed since and all three records still stand. In fact, Pele remains the only football player to date to score in a FIFA World Cup before turning 18.

Pele goal-scoring record in club football

In official matches, Pele scored 680 goals in club football.

A whopping 643 of these goals were scored for Santos in domestic level tournaments (both national and state levels), the Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup (the precursor to the FIFA Club World Cup). While various sources disagree about the number of matches he played for the Sao Paulo club, some put it at 659 and some at 665, the number of goals remains constant in most accounts.

Pele made his club debut for Santos aged 15 and spent most of his career there.

The remaining 37 goals were scored during Pele’s three-year stint with US club New York Cosmos, whom he joined in 1975 at the age of 35. He played 64 official games for the American club before retiring in 1977.

Interestingly, Pele’s haul of 643 goals for Santos stood as the record for most number of goals scored by a player for a single club for almost half a century before Lionel Messi broke it. The Argentinian scored 672 goals in 778 matches for Barcelona before leaving the Spanish outfit in 2021.

Pele goal-scoring record in first-class or senior football

Now, this is where the discrepancies start creeping in.

First class football refers to all official matches at the senior level. So in the modern context, adding up the total tally for club and country should ideally give the total. For Pele, it’s supposed to be 757 (680 for club and 77 for country).

Most statisticians, including ESPN’s in-house team, backs the number.

However, the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF), an organisation which keeps in-depth historical data and records of football matches, puts Pele at 778 goals from 846 official matches.

The RSSF has taken into account Pele’s goals for the military team and certain national selection trials in the tally. Whether these can be classified as first-class matches is still debated.

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo has over 800 official first class goals to his name while Lionel Messi is also inching towards the 800-mark.

Pele career goals

When it comes to Pele’s career goals, various numbers have been seen. This includes his strikes in youth-level football, friendlies, exhibition matches and others, apart from his official tally

While the number was never a significant stat in modern football, it becomes a bone of contention since the Guinness Book of World Records recognises Pele as the player with the most career goals in football.

“The most goals scored in a specified period is 1,279 by Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Brazil), known as Pele, from 7 September 1956 to 1 October 1977 in 1,363 games. His best year was 1959 with 126, and the Milesimo (1000th goal) came from a penalty for his club Santos at the Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, on 19 November 1969 when playing his 909th first-class match. He later added two more goals in special appearances,” the Guinness World Record site notes.

The site also adds that Brazilian Artur Friedenreich scored an ‘undocumented’ 1,329 goals in a 26-year first-class football career, between 1909 and 1935.

Meanwhile, FIFA, the world governing body for football, and CONMEBOL, the South American football federation, used to put Pele’s tally at 1,281, taking into account the two goals in ‘special appearances’ for Santos after his official retirement that the Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t count.

FIFA, however, has started to use ‘more than 1,200’ to refer to Pele’s goals tally in recent years.

Pele himself, meanwhile, puts his own goals tally at 1,283.

The RSSF, meanwhile, again comes in with an inflated tally of 1,303 goals in 1,392 matches for the Brazilian great.

Regardless of what the real numbers are, Pele’s goal-scoring record is truly astounding - stats fit for some universally regarded as the 'King' of football.

Pele goals in official matches

* depending on sources