Cristiano Ronaldo started his career in Portugal with Sporting CP, one of the premier teams in the country before being scouted and signed by Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in 2003.
He was a lanky but lightning-quick left-winger who had a dribbling technique that tried to replicate Ronaldinho. He was great to watch. Taking defenders head-on beating them with pace or skill and making them look foolish. Young Cristiano Ronaldo was a magician.
The Portugal Captain is undoubted, one of the greatest to have ever played the game of football and it is unbelievable that he still plays at the highest level at age 35 and is better than almost every single player on this planet. Just to put numbers into perspective, Cristiano Ronaldo was the 1st to get to 30 goals in 2020. He has done this ahead of players like Robert Lewandowski, Erling Braut Haaland, Romelu Lukaku and Ciro Immobile. The story before all of this and how Cristiano Ronaldo has achieved everything a player could not even dream of begins with his time at Manchester United.
CR7 was just 18 years old when he came into the mean English Premier League. He had heavy boots to fill in since David Beckham had left the club. Ronaldo won his first title in his first season itself as United lifted the FA Cup. He was instrumental and one of the primary reasons why Manchester United won the Premier League for three consecutive seasons. He was a real devil on the pitch. Cristiano Ronaldo had 118 goals and 69 assists for Manchester United over his 6 seasons at Old Trafford. He was so good in 2007/08 when Manchester United almost won the Treble for a second time in club history as they won the Premier League and UEFA Champions League but missed out on the FA Cup in the final against Chelsea. In this season, Ronaldo had 31 goals in 34 appearances in the Premier League and scored in the Champions League final against Chelsea.
His outstanding season earned him his first of an incredible five Ballon D’Or trophies. The Portuguese superstar won the PFA Players’ Player of the Year, PFA Fans’ Player of the Year, PFA Young Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year award. He is the only one to have won all four of these awards and that too, he managed to do it in one season itself! Such was the greatness of Cristiano Ronaldo and this is when we saw just what a generational talent he is.
Cristiano Ronaldo ended his Manchester United career with 1 Ballon D’Or, 1 FIFA The Best trophy, 2-time Player of the Year, 1 UEFA Champions League, 2 League Cups, 1 FIFA Club World Cup, 3 English Super Cups, 1 FA Cup and 3 Premier League titles. Pretty impressive over 6 years, don’t you think?
This happened to just be the start of his flourishing career as the records started tumbling and Ronaldo started winning every possible accolade there was. He joined Real Madrid in 2009, his dream club for a record transfer fee back then at £80 million, which ended up becoming the biggest bargain in the history of football. Ronaldo elevated his game even higher than at Manchester United. Over his 9 seasons at Real Madrid, he had 450 goals and 133 assists in just 438 games! He averaged more than a goal per game over 9 seasons!
The Portuguese superstar had 40 goals in 34 games in the La Liga in 2010/11, 46 goals in 38 games in 2011/12 and 48 goals in 2014/15. He crossed the 40 goal mark on 3 occasions and 30 goal ark on 3 occasions in his 9 seasons at Madrid. The Portuguese man won the Ballon D’Or with Real Madrid on 4 occasions in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, and won the FIFA The Best awards in all these years. He won the UEFA Best Player in Europe on 3 occasions as well, in 2014, 2016 and 2017. Ronaldo won the UEFA Champions League with Madrid, 4 times, including the hattrick from 2015-2018, which made them the first team to win back-to-back Champions League titles in the modern era. He is a 2-time Spanish Champion, 2-time Spanish Super Cup winner, 2-time Spanish Cup winner, 3-time FIFA Club World Cup winner and 3-time UEFA Super Cup winner.
Ronaldo decided that it was time for a new challenge and made his move to Italy’s Juventus in 2018. He is expected to cross the 100-goal mark by the end of the 2020/21 season. It remains to be seen how many goals the Portuguese legend can rack up for the Italian giants. Cristiano Ronaldo is already a 1-time Italian Super Cup winner and 2-time Italian Champion.
He is the UEFA Champions League’s all-time leading goal scorer, has been top scorer 17 times in all competitions. Ronaldo led Portugal to victory in the European Championships back in 2016. He also led them to win the first-ever UEFA Nations League back in 2019. He is a 10-time Footballer of the Year for Portugal and no one is close to his record. Ronaldo has also surpassed the 100-goal mark for Portugal, which makes him the leading scorer in international football among active players.
The records speak volumes of just how great Cristiano Ronaldo is. His ability to score goals for fun and the unparalleled will to win is unmatched. He has single-handedly turned around so many games throughout his career and that says much more than just his goalscoring tally. Cristiano Ronaldo may be a goal machine as well as record machine, but he is also the hardest worker and the biggest competitor in across all of sport, never mind, football.
