Lionel Messi is officially now the second highest goalscorer in the history of football. This is despite the fact that he had quite an low performance season with Paris Saint-Germain of France after moving from Spanish team Barcelonia where he scored a greater number of these goals that have shot him into this place in history..

Messi moved to PSG last summer as a free agent and helped them to Ligue 1 glory but only managed to score six league goals in 26 appearances.

He fared much better in the Champions League, scoring five in just seven games. All in all that’s 11 goals and it takes his career tally to a whopping 764.

That’s two clear of Brazil legend Pele, who (we stress) officially scored 762 across three decades.

He’s unlikely to catch longtime Cristiano Ronaldo at the top, who sits on 813 career goals.

The Argentina international could become the second player in history to hit 800 goals though.

Despite all this, for the greater football loving population of the world, Pele remain and will always remain the greatest footballer in the history of the beautiful game. On this scale of popularity he is followed by another Argentan who brough glamour and a high level of entertainment to soccer. His name is Maradona.

This is a list of the first the first twenty three, with Europe and South America monopolizing the list. Of course it is known that as African football is not respected, there of course is no record of the goals of African footballers.

23. Franz Binder (Austria/Germany) – 502 goals

22. Imre Schlosser (Hungary) – 504 goals

21. Hugo Sanchez (Mexico) – 507 goals

20. Roberto Dinamite (Brazil) – 511 goals

19. Luis Suarez (Uruguay) – 520 goals

18. Gyorgy Sarosi (Hungary) – 526 goals

17. Alfredo Di Stefano (Argentina/Spain) – 530 goals

16. Uwe Seeler (Germany) – 551 goals

15. Jimmy McGrory (Scotland) – 552 goals

14. Fernando Peyroteo (Portugal) – 553 goals

13. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden) – 560 goals

12. Glenn Ferguson (Northern Ireland) – 561 goals

11. Robert Lewandowski (Poland) – 563 goals

10. Joe Bambrick (Northern Ireland) – 616 goals

9. Eusebio (Portugal) – 619 goals

8. Gerd Muller (Germany) – 634 goals

7. Jimmy Jones (Northern Ireland) – 647 goals

6. Josef Bican (Austria/Czechoslovakia) – 720 goals

5. Ferenc Puskas (Hungary) – 729 goals

4. Romario (Brazil) – 755 goals

3. Pele (Brazil) – 762 goals

2. Lionel Messi (Argentina) – 764 goals

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) – 813 goals