By Alayande Stephen T.
It is the story that resonated across the globe this week as Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 900th career goal in a pulsating 2-0 Portugal win against Croatia in the UEFA Nations League Qualifiers. It is indeed an illustrious career spanning over 22 years with a lot of achievement to show forth.
Cristiano Ronaldo reached a significant milestone on Thursday by scoring the 900th goal of his illustrious career.
The 39-year-old struck for Portugal in their Nations League game against Croatia, putting them 2-0 up.
That symbooic goal prompted an emotional celebration by the forward, as he dropped to his knees by the corner flag in tears.
The goal was his 131st for his country, while he has also scored at club level for Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and current club Al-Nassr.
“It was emotional because it’s a milestone,” Ronaldo said. “It seems like any other milestone but only I know, and the people around me, how hard it is to work every day, to be physically and psychologically fit, to score 900 goals. It’s a unique milestone in my career.”
Can you fault any of Cristiano Ronaldo’s quote, NEVER. Simply because behind those feats are numerous years of discipline, hardwork, commitment and sacrifices unquantifiable.
The Portuegese has been scoring for more than two decades now… 22 years of professional football career to be precise.
Such is Ronaldo’s longevity that if someone was born when he scored the first competitive goal of his career they would now be 21.
He struck a double for Portugal’s Sporting CP on 7 October 2002 at the age of 17 years, eight months and three days in a 3-0 win against Moreirense.
How Ronaldo scores his goals
According to Opta:
Ronaldo has 164 penalties and 64 free-kicks in his 900 goals
He has scored 768 inside the area and 132 outside the area.
He has scored 573 goals with his right foot, 173 with his left, 152 headers and two ‘other’. He has an unbelievable 66 hat-tricks thus far in his career.
479 goals have been scored at home; 361 scored away from home; and 60 at neutral venues.
The teams Ronaldo has scored most goals against in his career so far are: Sevilla (27); Atlético de Madrid (25); Getafe (23); Barcelona (20); Celta de Vigo (20).
These are his journey and his goals to each clubs from Sporting Lisbon in Portugal where he started at age 17.
He scored 5 goals for Sporting Lisbon in Portugal.
He then moved to Manchester United, scoring 118 goals in 293 games for the Red Devils.
He moved to Real Madrid in 2009 for a then world record 94m euros (£80m).
In nine years at the Spanish giants, he scored 450 goals in just 438 games before making the move to Italy to join Juventus.
In Juventus, he scored 101 goals during his three years with the Italian club before returning to Manchester United.
On his second stint with the Red Devils, he scored 27 goals in 54 games.
In 2023 he made the move to Saudi Arabia with Al-Nassr, where he has got 68 goals and still counting till date.
Incredibly, almost half of Ronaldo’s goals (437) have been scored since he turned 30 in February 2015. That’s unbelievably incredible by all standards.
You know why I’m not surprised because the man in his recent interview with former Red Devil team mate – Rio Ferdinand on his YouTube channel , he said “I want to reach 1,000 goals, if I don’t have any injuries, this for me is the most important [thing]. I want that. “
“All the goals I have scored, they have video.” he postulated.
All things being equal, if C.Ronaldo could still play into his 40s, he might be able to give us one more display at the 2026 World cup, just maybe.
