List of international goals scored by Pelé



Pelé was a Brazilian professional footballer who represented the Brazil national football team as a forward from 1957 to 1971. Throughout his career, Pelé scored 77 goals in 92 international appearances. He remained Brazil's top goalscorer for over 60 years, before being surpassed by Neymar in 2023. Pelé made his debut for Brazil in a 2–1 defeat against Argentina on 7 July 1957. In that same match, he scored his first international goal aged 16 years and eight months, and remains Brazil's youngest ever goalscorer. Pelé scored seven international hat-tricks, the most of any Brazilian player as of 2024.

Pelé scored 12 goals in 14 FIFA World Cup appearances spanning four separate World Cups. As of the most recent edition, he is the only footballer to have won three World Cups and is one of only five players, the others being Uwe Seeler, Miroslav Klose, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi, to have scored in four separate ones. At the 1958 FIFA World Cup, Pelé was at the time the youngest player to participate in a World Cup and became the youngest scorer in a World Cup game. He also became the youngest footballer to score a hat-trick in a World Cup, doing so against France in the semifinal. In addition, Pelé achieved the distinction of being the youngest footballer to play in a World Cup final, where he scored two goals to help Brazil beat Sweden 5–2, and the youngest player to win a World Cup. He finished the tournament with six goals, behind a record-breaking Just Fontaine, and was named best young player of the tournament. Following the tournament, he was nicknamed O Rei (The King), and emerged as a worldwide black sporting star.

In the South American Football Championship, Pelé scored six goals in eight appearances, all during the 1959 edition. Although Brazil were runners-up, he was the top scorer and was named best player of the tournament. Pelé scored one goal in the 1962 FIFA World Cup and one in the 1966 edition. He played in six World Cup qualifying matches for the 1970 edition, scoring six goals, and netted four more at the tournament itself. Pelé scored his final international goal on 11 July 1971 against Austria, and made his final appearance for Brazil against Yugoslavia on 18 July 1971. Pelé is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time and was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century. In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, while, in 2000, he was voted the World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics and was a joint winner of the FIFA Player of the Century award.