Hasta El Gol Siempre

It’s been reported fairly widely lately – on this website among many others – that Martín ‘El Loco‘ Palermo is within spitting distance of becoming Boca Juniors’ all-time leading goalscorer. He needs twelve or fifteen or twenty more, we are told. Well, on Tuesday this was looked into by El Gráfico, a publication who always emphasise the historical and thoughtful aspects of Argentine football. And it turns out that Palermo’s actually some way off the record.

After going back and checking all the records through Boca’s history, the El Gráfico article gives us a few simple facts: Martín Palermo has scored 167 goals for Boca (139 domestically, and 28 internationally). Francisco Varallo, whose record Palermo is supposedly closing in on, is widely held to have scored 181 goals for the club. Well, he did – domestically. But he also hit 14 in international contests, thus taking his tally up to 195. That record’s a bit further off.

It doesn’t stop there, however, because there are actually two more players with more Xeneize goals than Palermo, whose records were previously overlooked due to at least part of their careers taking place in the amateur era before 1931. Domingo Tarasconi, who played ‘90%’ (the report says) of his career in the amateur era, bagged a total of 191, putting him third in the all-time top scorers list for the club, between Palermo and Varallo.

That’s right – third. Because Varallo is in fact only Boca’s second highest-scoring player himself. Roberto Cherro, who also played partly in the amateur era, scored a terrifying 210 domestic goals for Boca, and a further eight in cross-border disputes. With 218 goals, he, not Varallo, is Boca’s all-time leading scorer. And Palermo, with ‘only’ 167, is a mile behind.

So in fact, when (because it’s surely no longer a case of ‘if’) Martín Palermo scores his 182nd goal, he won’t even be his side’s third highest ever goalscorer. And when he finally overtakes Varallo with his 196th strike, he’ll only be able to lay claim to the title of highest scorer in the professional era.

So, if you’re in need of some trivia to win over a new Argentine friend sceptical as to just how much you really know about their country’s football, you can have that one on me (and El Gráfico).