O Al Nassr, by Jorge Jesus, defeated Al-Wahda, by José Morais, 4-2 last Wednesday, in a private match played in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, in which Cristiano Ronaldo did his thing again, with the accurate shot that opened the scoring, after 12 minutes.
Now, according to the accounts of the Brazilian portal Globoesportethis was, in fact… the much-hyped 1,000th goal of the Portuguese international’s already extensive career. However, like 45 others, they are not included in the official accounts, as they took place in friendly matches, so the official count stands, for now, at 954.
Let’s go in parts. In ‘painful’ matches, the 40-year-old player scored five goals for Sporting, 145 for Manchester United, 450 for Real Madrid, 101 for Juventus, 110 for Al Nassr and 143 for Portugal. There are two others left out for the Portuguese club, 11 for the English club, 23 for the Spanish club, three for the Italian club and seven for the Saudi club.
In fact, the Madeiran footballer has already surpassed thousands of accurate shots, but in contexts that could never be counted. With a lion on his chest, for example, he enjoyed himself in a training game against Samouquense, as well as in a pre-season duel with the United States of America under-23 team.
At Manchester United, in 2007, he did ‘damage’ against a team made up of European players, in a solidarity match. In 2011, he did the same for Real Madrid, against a team from Murcia, and, in 2012, already wearing the Juventus shirt, he ‘shot’ Kuwait, in the pre-season. All goals that are excluded from the count.
This is the ‘race’ with Pelé
On an official level, Cristiano Ronaldo is the player with the most goals in the history of world football (954), followed by Lionel Messi (896), Josef Bican (768) and Pelé (767). Still, there are those who consider that he is, in fact, the last to deserve this status, having overcome the barrier of 1,200, although this is not possible to confirm.
In fact, the Brazilian ‘legend’ even has a higher scoring average than the Portuguese. More specifically, 0.92 goals per game, as he scored 767 goals in 831 games, compared to 0.73, which required 1,300 games to reach the current 954. In this regard, it is very unlikely that the second will surpass the first.
Taking into account the friendlies, the ‘King’ scored between 1,159 and 1,162 goals, playing for Brazil, Santos and New York Cosmos, to which he added another 123, scored with the shirt of regional teams or even the Armed Forces, whose nature prevents them from being taken into account in this scheme.
What’s next on Cristiano Ronaldo’s horizon?
Scoring, this season, the 46 goals he needs to reach 1,000 is not impossible… but almost. Still, it is certain that Cristiano Ronaldo will do everything he can to get there, in an attempt to help Al Nassr win the title of champion of Saudi Arabia, and Portugal the title of world champion.
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