When it comes to Cristiano Ronaldo, widely known as “CR7,” the numbers speak for themselves. He has played more than 1,000 professional football matches and scored more than 800 goals. He guided Portugal to their first major international trophy, lifted the UEFA Champions League trophy five times, and is a five-time winner of the Ballon d’Or.
He has scored 115 international goals, more than any other male player.
The beginning of the legend…
Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro was born on February 5, 1985, in Madeira, a Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean.
He was the youngest of four children, the son of a cook and a gardener.
His father was a kit man at the local side Andorinha; when Ronaldo started training with the youth team, his speed and diminutive stature earned him the nickname Abelhinha (“Little Bee”).
Sporting Lisbon soon scouted him after he moved to Nacional.
At the age of 12, Ronaldo had to leave Madeira for the Portuguese mainland.
At Sporting, Ronaldo impressed his coaches not only with his natural talent but also with his work ethic and determination to succeed.
He made his professional debut in 2002, at the age of 17, and word of his ability began to spread around European clubs.
In August 2003, Ronaldo put on a dazzling display in a pre-season friendly against Manchester United, and the English club immediately signed the young winger with lightning-fast feet for £12.24 million.
During the 2009–10 season, Ronaldo joined Real Madrid for a then-world-record fee of £80 million ($130 million).
In Spain, he showed that he had become the complete centre-forward: fast and strong, superb in the air, and a deadly finisher with either foot.
He developed a fierce rivalry with Barcelona’s Argentinian maestro Lionel Messi, with both players striving to outdo the other in a quest to be recognized as the world’s best player.
Between 2008 and 2021, the pair were awarded the Ballon d’Or a staggering 12 times in 13 years.
Ronaldo’s remorselessness in front of goal saw him become Real Madrid’s highest-ever scorer, racking up an incredible 450 goals in just 438 appearances.
He won two La Liga titles, two Copas del Rey, and three Club World Cups.
In the UEFA Champions League, Ronaldo continued to set the standard, adding four more titles to his collection and scoring the most goals in a Champions League season in 2013/14, when he hit the net 17 times in just 11 matches.
Following his departure from Madrid in 2018, Ronaldo spent three years in Italy playing for Turin giants Juventus, where he reached a century of goals and claimed the Serie A league title two seasons in a row.
In 2021, Ronaldo made an emotional return to Old Trafford, where he finished the season as top scorer and extended his Champions League records for most goals (140) and most appearances (183).
International Icon
Ronaldo made his debut for Portugal in a friendly against Kazakhstan on August 20, 2003, and the following year he scored his first international goal against Greece during a group-stage match at UEFA EURO 2004.
Despite making an impact on the competition, Ronaldo’s tournament ended in tears as Portugal lost out in the final, once more to Greece, the hosts and surprise winners.
Few could have predicted at that moment that Ronaldo would go on to become the first player to play in five EURO finals and grab the tournament records for both appearances (25) and goals (14).
At Euro 2016, Ronaldo led his team on a battling run through the tournament to the final.
In the showpiece match against France, Ronaldo was left in tears once again, as an early injury forced him from the field, but Portugal held on to win 1–0, allowing their talisman to lift the top trophy.
It was his country’s first major international title.
Success at the FIFA World Cup was more difficult to come by, but in 2018, Ronaldo equalled the record of West Germany’s Uwe Seller, the Brazilian legend Pelé, and Seller’s native Miroslav Klose for most World Cup tournaments with four goals.
As Ronaldo continued to find the net, one further landmark record came steadily closer in view: the most goals in men’s internationals.
Iran’s Ali Daei had previously held it, striking 109 times between 1993 and 2006.
Ronaldo equalled Daei’s mark at the delayed UEFA EURO 2020 tournament, where he scored five times.
On September 1, 2021, during a World Cup qualifying game against the Republic of Ireland at the Estádio Algarve, Ronaldo scored two late headers to claim the record for his own. By the end of the qualification process, he had increased his tally to 115.
As of the same date, he had made 186 international appearances, placing him third on the all-time list, just nine behind Malaysia’s Soh Chin Ann.
Ronaldo may now be in his late ‘30s, but few would bet against him breaking even more records.
It is clear that, whenever he does decide to hang up his boots, CR7 will leave a legacy behind that will take some matching.
Ronaldo is also breaking records outside of the football field, especially on social media.
He holds the record for most followers for an athlete on Twitter, as well as the most followers on Instagram for an athlete.
His Instagram account has been the overall most followed account on Instagram since 2017. His official account currently counts 478 million followers, but the remarkable number keeps increasing.
As of April 2021, he received the most likes for an athlete on Facebook, racking up a record-breaking 124,726,150 thumbs up.
As a legend of international football, Ronaldo’s Wikipedia page is also the most viewed Wikipedia page for an athlete (male).
In 2003, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said of Ronaldo, “He is one of the most exciting young players I’ve ever seen.
Cristiano Ronaldo: The world’s top-scorer
Today, he’s the top-scorer player in the world, a pluri-record holder, and one of the most famous names ever in the football industry.
The crowds chant his name, and his kick strikes true to score goal after goal, but that may not be enough for Cristiano Ronaldo, who has an ambitious heart and the skills and tenacity to reach unimaginable heights.
Let’s keep trying to set the numbers even higher!” The football champion writes on social media, and we certainly can’t wait to see.
