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Argentina captain and icon Lionel Messi on Thursday night became the top male international goalscorer, overtaking Brazil legend Pele. Messi scored a hat-trick to give Argentina a 3-0 win over Bolivia in a World Cup qualifier. Messi's international goal tally now stands at 79, two more than Pele. Pele - three-time World Cup winner with Brazil is currently in hospital due to surgery for a tumor on his colon. It was the first time Argentina fans were allowed to watch their national team since the start of the pandemic. There were 21,000 fans in attendance at the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires. Messi scored his first goal 14 minutes into the game - he moved the ball between a Bolivian defender's legs and shot from outside the box to the right of goalkeeper Carlos Lampe. Hi second came in the 64th minute after he worked a one-two with Lautaro Martinez and displayed superb footwork in a packed penalty box. He completed his hat-trick in the 88th minute, sending home a rebound

Cristiano Ronaldo is back in top form and has scored 11 goals in his last seven games for Juventus. In his latest game, Juventus vs Parma, he scored a brace that saw him overtake German icon Gerd Muller as the fifth highest goalscorer in football history. Ronaldo has now scored 736 goals in 1028 games played so far in his career, averaging a goal per game ratio of 0.72. Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas is the fourth highest goalscorer of all time with a tally of 747 goals. Ronaldo will eventually overtake Puskas and Pele (the third highest goal scorer who is on 767 goals). The highest goalscorer in football history is Czech-Austrian legend Josef Bican, who reportedly scored a staggering 805 goals in 530 games and retired at the age of 42. The second-highest goalscorer of all times is Brazil legend Romario, who scored 772 goals in 994 games - a goal per game ratio of 0.77. Gerd Muller now finds himself in the 6th position, with 735 goals, one less than Cristiano Ronaldo. Lionel

Messi has been headlining since his return to international football after a three-month ban. He scored the lone goal in the Brazil - Argentina friendly and another goal and an assist in yesterday's friendly which ended in a 2-2 draw for Uruguay and Argentina. Today, being the 50th anniversary of Pele's 1,000th career goal, Pele dismissed the notion of there being any comparison between the Argentine and the Brazilian legend. Per  Marca , he said:  "Messi better than Pele? Pele is incomparable. "Anyone who wants to compare Pele with another athlete knows nothing. Messi is extraordinary, but within humans. Pele is outside humans, is outside normal parameters. "I do not say this because I am Brazilian, I say it because I saw that story, the magnitude of Pelé, his plays, the individual technique, the header, ambidextrous, his strength, his impulse. If you want to find a defect, you will not find it. " If somebody comes to me and starts to make compar

Brazil football legend Pele has slammed Barcelona's main man, Lionel Messi, claiming he is too one-footed to be regarded as the best footballer of all time. The Brazil legend, Pele, has scored more than 1,000 goals in his remarkable career, and believes other players than Messi should be compared to him in terms of greatness. He told Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo,  “How can you make a comparison between a guy who heads the ball well, shoots with the left, shoots with the right and another who only shoots with one leg, only has one skill and doesn’t head the ball well?” “How can you compare? To compare with Pele, it has to be someone who shoots well with the left, shoots well with the right, and scores headers.”   "As far as I’m concerned, [Diego] Maradona was one of the best players ever. If you ask me, 'Was he better than Messi?' Yes, he was. Much better.   “[Franz] Beckenbauer, [Johan] Cruyff were also excellent players." Earlier this year, Pel