700 goals in 20 years and 2 days: Cristiano’s unique achievement in numbers

news
Advertisement

Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 700th goal in club football with a left-footer to give Manchester United a 2-1 win away to Everton in the Premier League. The Portuguese came on as a substitute after an early injury to Anthony Martial and, as we have long been accustomed to, became the wild card of his team.

Advertisement

Cristiano is unique – there is no doubt about that. The first goal of those 700 for club teams came on October 7, 2002 for Sporting (Lisbon) against Moreirense in the Portuguese league.

In this match, his first as a starter in men’s football, Ronaldo scored twice – in the 34th minute with his right foot and in the 90th with a header. He signed three more times in his first season with Sporting, which turned out to be his only one.

It’s been 20 years and 2 days since yesterday’s hit at Goodison Park in Liverpool.

That’s 20 seasons and 700 goals in club football, making 35 on average per competitive year! An amazing achievement. It came in 943 matches played with the teams of four club formations. That’s an average of 0.74 goals per game.

In 340 games for Manchester United (over two spells), KR7 scored 144 times, with 97 of those goals coming with his right foot, 22 with his left foot and 24 headers. There’s also one where the ball hits him in the chest – it’s counted in the “other” column.

For Real Madrid, one of the football phenomena has 438 matches and (!) 450 goals. He scored 298 times with his right, 81 with his left and 70 with his head, and there is also one hit in the “other” column – again after a ricochet in a part of the body that does not count in any of the three official categories.

And in the last club team he played for – Juventus, the numbers are impressive:

134 games, 101 goals. (62, 21, 18 with right, left and head respectively).

It is here to add that Cristiano has 117 goals in 191 matches (an average of 0.61 per game) for Portugal, bringing his career tally to 817.

No comment. Most professional footballers dream of recording that many appearances in the game, let alone scoring that many goals.

Ronaldo is already #1 in history as a goalscorer, despite Pele and Brazilian statisticians trying to convince us of “over 1000 goals” scored by the King. The truth is that in official matches for which there is accurate information, Cristiano is far ahead of the rest.

Actually, not that far.

Leo Messi has 781 goals for clubs and his country Argentina. He is also 2 years younger. Who knows…

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.