“Only I know how difficult it was to get here,” Cristiano Ronaldo said at the end of the match. His goal helped Portugal to leave Croatia behind (2-1) at the start of the journey in the Nations League and to mark a milestone, that of reaching 900 goals scored in official matches in a legendary professional career that does not seem to end because the Portuguese star, who will turn 40 in February, is already looking ahead to the next season. “The challenge is to reach 1,000. I think I will achieve it, if I do not have injuries, at 41 years old.” His plan is to play for two or three more years.
Cristiano defies all conventions. And he also shoots with words. Before joining the national team, when he passed up the chance to reach 900 goals in a Saudi league match, he appeared before the media and said: “All the goals I scored have video. They can be proven. In my case, they can all be seen and they are certified.” He has his sights set on the pride of validating a record. In November 1969, Pelé scored a penalty goal for Santos against Vasco da Gama in Maracaná and it was celebrated as the 1,000th goal of the unforgettable Brazilian number ten. The match was stopped and Pelé was hoisted on shoulders to do a lap of honour around the monumental Rio stadium. After that epiphany, he still had time to win a World Cup in Mexico and prolong his legend for another eight years. He retired at 36 and had 1,292 goals scored. But FIFA recalculated the numbers, separated the wheat from the chaff and concluded that more than 500 were celebrated in friendly or exhibition matches at a time when team tours or combined matches that even mixed players from several teams were common.
According to FIFA, Pele scored 767 goals, although some statisticians give him ten fewer. Years later, his compatriot Romario had only 755 official goals, even though he claims to have scored 1002. “I respect everyone. If you want more goals, I can add the ones from training,” Cristiano said defiantly. Few people give as much value to individual records in a team sport as he does. “Reaching 900 means a lot. It was a number I wanted to reach for a long time.” He scored the goal after finishing off a cross from Nuno Mendes and went to a corner at the La Luz stadium in Lisbon to get emotional alone before his teammates arrived. “It seems like just another milestone, but only I and the people around me know how difficult it is to work every day, to be physically and psychologically fit, to score the 900th goal. It is a unique milestone in my career,” he concluded. His teammate Bruno Fernandes summed up what happened. “The rest of us have stopped counting, but not him. It is another record for Portugal. Everything he achieves speaks for itself. There are no words to describe what he has achieved.”
FIFA also does its calculations and relies on the Rec Sport Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF), which places Cristiano ahead of Lionel Messi (838) and the Austrian Josef Pepi Bican, who is credited with 805 goals in a singular career that took him to Slavia Prague in the 1930s and 1940s, was a different kind of football and different conditions: Bican’s career, who is credited with 1,468 goals in all kinds of matches, was cut short by the Second World War. The list of scorers would be completed by Romario (745), Gerd Müller (735) and Ferenc Puskas (704). After them would be another active player, Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski, who raised his mark to 656 against Scotland.
Looking at the Portuguese player alone, we can see 900 goals in 1,238 official matches, an average of 0.73 per game. 5 goals for Sporting, 145 between his two spells at Manchester United, 450 with Real Madrid, 101 with Juventus and 67 with Al-Nassr, his current team. For Portugal he has scored 131. But in the midst of all the numbers, Cristiano puts his spice: “Records arise naturally. I don’t break records. Records are what follow me.”
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