Sunil Chhetri surpasses Lionel Messi in international goalscoring charts; only trails Cristiano Ronaldo
Indian football team captain Sunil Chhetri has surpassed Lionel Messi into second place in the list of active players with the most international goals and is now only trailing Cristiano Ronaldo.
Sunil Chhetri achieved this feat by netting twice in the 2-0 win over Bangladesh in the ongoing FIFA World Cup Qualifiers in Qatar's Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium. By scoring a brace, Sunil Chhetri took his tally to 74 goals for India, overtaking Lionel Messi, who has 72 goals for Argentina.
Cristiano Ronaldo is leading the international goalscoring charts at the moment with 103 goals for Portugal and is only 7 goals away from beating the all-time record which is currently held by former Iranian striker Ali Daei, who has 109 international goals.
Sunil Chhetri has scored 74 goals for India in just 117 international caps, giving him a goal-to-game ratio of 0.63, which is better than both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi has a goal-to-game ratio of 0.5 while Cristiano Ronaldo has a ratio of 0.59.
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Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have the chance to extend their record unlike Sunil Chhetri
Sunil Chhetri might be overtaken by Lionel Messi in a short space of time. The Indian captain only has one more fixture to improve his goals tally, another World Cup Qualifier game against Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have multiple international matches coming up this summer. Lionel Messi and Argentina have the 2021 Copa America to look forward to, while Cristiano Ronaldo will lead his Portugal side to Euro 2020 in the hope of defending their crown.
For the time being Sunil Chhetri is the second highest active goalscorer on the international stage. However, if we consider the all-time list of international goalscorers, Sunil Chhetri is still in the top 10, while Lionel Messi is down in 12th place.
The top 10 comprises of some of the world's all time greats including Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele and Hungarian striker Ferenc Puskás, which should be a proud moment for all Indians to have their player amongst some of the legends of the sport.
The current top 5 list of active international goalscorers is as follows:
Cristiano Ronaldo - 103 goals
Sunil Chhetri - 74 goals
Ali Mabkhout (UAE) - 73 goals
Lionel Messi - 72 goals
Robert Lewandowski - 66 goals
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