Lionel Messi recently celebrated going past Brazilian superstar Pele in terms of most goals scored for a club. While there was much frenzy around Messi’s phenomenal effort for Barcelona, it appears Santos is disputing the record.
Santos is the club that Pele spent 19 years of his career at and scored a whopping 1091 goals. However, many of these strikes came in friendly matches. Santos believes that these goals should also count towards Pele’s overall haul.
Messi notched his 644th goal for Barcelona during the weekend’s 3-0 hammeing of Valladoid. Till this point, Pele’s mark of 643 goals was considered the most for an individual player at a single club.
It is worth noting that in the packed schedules of football clubs and players today, it is next to impossible to club too many friendly games. One can only come up with hypothetical assumptions of how Messi would have fared against the level of opposition that he would face in friendly matches.
Messi took to social media to thank his fans for their warm wishes. Meanwhile, Pele also congratulated the Argentinian on his accomplishments.
“Congratulations on your historical record, Lionel. But above all, congratulations on your beautiful career at Barcelona. Stories like ours, of loving the same club for so long, unfortunately will be even rarer in football. I admire you a lot,” Pele wrote.