An association in Brazilian club, Santos has debunked claims that Lionel Messi equaled Pele’s record of most goals scored in a single club.
The Argentine scored his 644th club goal on Tuesday, in a 3 – 0 victory over Real Valladolid to tie the record set by the Brazilian legend.
However, Pele’s former club, Santos refuted such claim to reveal that the legendary soccer player scored more goals than Messi; meaning his record remained untouchable.
Santos’ investigators and historians association criticised the fact that 448 goals Pele scored for Santos have been ignored.
They insisted that he netted a total of 1091 goals. Hence, people should not talk about Messi beating Pele’s record.
“The 448 goals which they are trying to omit today were scored against the main clubs from those seasons. Pele scored nine goals against each of Club America (Mexico) and Colo Colo (Chile), He also put eight past Inter Milan, one of the main European clubs in the 1960. The list is immense and with big clubs: River Plate, Boca Juniors, Racing, Universidad de Chile, Real Madrid, Juventus, Lazio, Napoli, Benfica and Anderlecht. Barcelona themselves, where Messi plays, were also one of Pele’s victims: four goals, scored in four games,” part of the statement reads.
The aforementioned association believes that whether a match is official or not is irrelevant: “The argument of some analysts is that many of these 448 goals scored in friendly matches were against weak opponents, like small teams or regional teams. Even so, the matches were played in official uniform with the official laws of the game and officially logged.”
“We must remember that clubs could only play friendlies with the approval of the regional and national federations. That is one of the rules imposed by FIFA, the organiser of world football. Taking into account subjective attributes, like the strength of opponents, is not ideal for compiling statistical data. The numbers are absolute. A goal against Eibar is statistically the same as one scored versus Valencia. A goal against Transvaal (of Surinam) is worth the same as one scored against Real Madrid, in the middle of the Santiago Bernabeu,” the statement argued.
Meanwhile, the three-time World Cup winner has not said anything about the latest twist to the narratives, having shared a congratulatory post on his social media to commend the Argentine on his feat.
“When your heart overflows with love, it is difficult to change your path. Like you, I know what it’s like to love wearing the same shirt every day. Like you, I know that there is nothing better than the place we feel at home. Congratulations on your historic record, Messi. But above all, congratulations on your beautiful career at Barcelona. Stories like ours, of loving the same club for so long, unfortunately will be increasingly rare in football. I admire you very much.”
Pele began playing for Santos at age 15 where he played between 1956 – 1974.
