You get two types of legendary footballer when it comes to their records being broken, but it usually reflects better on their legacy if they show a bit of dignity.
They can accept that another great player has come along and acknowledge how impressive they both are, or they can start making up their own stats in an attempt to cling on to those records.
There have been a few suggestions recently about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo breaking some of Pele’s legendary records, while most official stats aren’t on Pele’s side here.
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It’s believed that Ronaldo recently broke his all-time scoring record of of 757 goals, while Messi shattered his one club record of 643 goals.
Obviously Pele played in a very different era where records may have been sketch and there certainly wasn’t a dubious goals panel to alter the numbers slightly, but alarm bells are ringing when the Brazil legend has awarded himself an extra 500+ goals compared to the records:
Pele isn’t the only Brazilian striker to make some bold claims about their goalscoring records – Romario also claims he scored 1000 goals in his career but the official stats just don’t add up.
There are suggestions that they count friendlies and youth games while Brazil’s league system was a variety of State Champions/Cups/Leagues which some took more seriously than others so we may never know the true total.
Clearly Pele isn’t prepared to give up his record just yet, and if he sticks to that number then it’s unlikely that anyone will ever break it.