Pele, one of the greatest legends in sports history, passed away at age 82. The Brazilian star won the World Cup three times in Sweden 1958, Chile 1962 and Mexico 1970. That last perfomance was superb alongside names like Carlos Alberto, Jairzinho, Rivelino and Tostao.
At the club level, though Pele never went to Europe, the stats are also incredible during almost two decades playing for his beloved Santos FC in Brazil. In the last years of his career, Edson Arantes do Nascimento went to the United States and played with Cosmos of New York. It was an amazing stint sharing the field with other stars such as Franz Beckenbauer.
One of the biggest questions regarding Pele and his legendary career is how many goals he scored. There's a lot of controversy in a topic which is crucial to establish him as the greatest player of all time when talking about him, Diego Armando Maradona or Lionel Messi. Read here to find out this incredible stat of O'Rei.
How many goals Pele scored in his career?
This is an enormous debate for soccer experts. According to many official reports, Pele scored 643 goals with Santos FC and FIFA has a total count of 767 during his career (club and international level).
However, especially for famous statisticians in Brazil, the amount of goals scored by Pele is way higher. In fact, the total count with Santos FC could be 1091 goals and 1282 goals for his entire career. Indeed, that was part of his legend. The man who broke the 1000-goals mark.
At the same time, many experts agree that Pele scored more than 500 goals during friendly matches in a period of time in which Copa Libertadores, the most famous club tournament in America, was just having its first steps. Pele was already a star before that.
By the way, Guinness World Records says this about Pele. "The most goals scored in a specified period is 1279 by Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Brazil) (b. 23 Oct 1940), known as Pelé, from 7 Sep 1956 to 1 Oct 1977 in 1,363 games."