Ronaldo still has some way to go
Cristiano Ronaldo still has work to do if he’s to convince everyone that he’s broken the all-time goalscoring record.
The 35-year-old bagged his 760th career goal when he scored in Juventus’ 2-0 Italian Super Cup win over Napoli on Wednesday – enough for some to believe he had moved ahead of Josef Bican’s tally of 759.
But, according to football authorities in the Czech Republic, Bican, who scored the bulk of his goals for Slavia Prague in the 1930s and 40s, is still a considerable distance ahead of the former Manchester United and Real Madrid man.
Less than 24 hours on from Ronaldo seemingly reaching the milestone, the Czech FA have announced the discovery of an extra season in which Bican played for Hradec Kralove in the Czech second division towards the end of his career. The goals he scored during that campaign had not, until now, been added to his official tally.
The best goalscorer in football history? 🤔
The History and Statistics committee of the Czech FA counted all the goals scored by the legendary Josef Bican and we can declare he scored 821 goals in official matches.
Jaroslav Kolář, the Head of the committee shares more details. pic.twitter.com/eYqTcGJf1p
— Czech Football National Team (@ceskarepre_eng) January 21, 2021
A video tweeted by the Czech FA attempted to clarify the situation: “The History and Statistics committee of the Czech FA counted all the goals scored by the legendary Josef Bican and we can declare he scored 821 goals in official matches,” said head of committee, Jaroslav Kolar.
“Who is the best goalscorer in football history? Josef Bican or Cristiano Ronaldo? Simple question but complicated answer.
“Mainly because from the whole amount of Bican’s goals you have to pick just the official ones, which is complicated. Our history and statistics committee of Czech FA started to deal with this problem.
“We based our research on statistics from prestigious international statistical websites that state 805 goals with notice that goals scored by Bican in 1952 in the Czech second division for Hradec Kralove are missing.
“We managed to find them – 53 goals in 26 games – and we also double-checked every detail about Bican’s league, cup and international matches.
“After that we came out with the official number of Bican’s scored goals. On behalf of the history and statistics committee of Czech FA, we can proclaim that Josef Bican scored 821 goals in official matches.
“It means that Cristiano Ronaldo is not the best goalscorer in history yet, and he has to work more to break this record.”
Just the 62 more goals required then, Cristiano.
