The Czech FA have disputed Cristiano Ronaldo overtaking Josef Bican as football’s all-time top scorer, claiming the Juventus forward will need to score 62 more goals for the record to be his.
Ronaldo scored the opening goal in Juventus’ 2-0 win over Napoli in the Supercoppa Italiana on Wednesday night, bringing his all-time total for club and country to 760.
Czech striker Bican was the former record holder, scoring 759 goals during his prestigious career, before hanging up his boots in 1955.
However, the Czech FA released a long statement (526 words), claiming that Bican had in fact scored 821 goals.
“As Cristiano Ronaldo approaches legendary Josef Bican for the number of goals scored in official matches, the questions are multiplied by the number of goals scored by the Czechoslovak shooter,” the statement said.
“The answer is – Josef Bican has scored 821 goals in official matches.
“Goals from matches in the first and second leagues, national cups, the Central European Cup and national team selections are included. On the contrary, with the exception of national teams, friendly matches are not included in the statistics.
The top scorer in football history? ?
The Czech FA History and Statistics Committee has counted all the goals scored by legendary Josef Bican and we can say that he has scored 821 goals in official matches.
Jaroslav Kolář, the head of the committee shares more details. pic.twitter.com/eYqTcGJf1p
– Czech soccer team (@ceskarepre_eng) January 21, 2021
“It can be said with the utmost seriousness that this is a number that corresponds to the current state of the possibility of verifying all data, so it is the most accurate number possible.”
The statement concluded by reminding us all that if Bican’s career had not been interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, this figure could have been even higher.
The Czech FA are not the first to go pedantic when it comes to scoring records. When Lionel Messi broke Pelé’s record of 643 goals for a single club in December, Santos was quick to claim that the Brazilian tall had in fact scored 1091 goals for the club.
Pele’s Instagram biography was then changed to include “All-time top scorer (1283) after Ronaldo passed him on the all-time top ranking in January.
