The Portuguese legend has broken yet another footballing record. Cristiano Ronaldo on Wednesday overtook Ali Daei’s record in terms of international goals. The 36-year-old is now the highest international goalscorer with 111 goals. SportzPoint breaks down the goals with interesting numerical stats.
Also Read: Football Players who played with both Messi and Ronaldo
Hat-tricks, Penalties and Victims:
After his late brace against Ireland on Wednesday, Cristiano Ronaldo has now 111 international goals in 180 matches. He surpassed the Iran great Ali Daei (109 goals in 149 games).
Also Read: Messi vs Ronaldo: The hat-trick battle
Cristiano Ronaldo has a total of 57 hat-tricks at the game. Out of which 9 have come when he was in serving his nation. Moreover, Ronaldo’s nine hat tricks with Portugal are the most by a European man It also includes two 4-goal matches.
Although he is famous for penalty shooting skills, just 14 of his 111 goals have come from the spot. However, he has missed 7 penalties, including the one against Ireland on Wednesday.
Ireland is the latest country to fall prey to Ronaldo’s goalscoring abilities. Hence, Ireland becomes Ronaldo’s 45th victim. Although the Portuguese failed to score in the previous two meetings against Ireland, he certainly didn’t miss the chance this time. However, the national teams he faced the most without scoring goals are – Albania (4), England (3) and Brazil (3).
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On the other hand, Ronaldo’s most favourite opponents are – Lithuania (7 goals in 3 games), Sweden (7 goals in 7 games), Andorra (6 goals in 3 games), Hungary (6 goals in 6 games), and Luxembourg (6 goals in 9 games).
Cristiano Ronaldo’s goals in every International Competition:
With his two goals on Wednesday, Ronaldo reached 33 goals in 42 UEFA World Cup Qualifying games. It is the highest among any other European players.
Also Read: Most goals in Serie A since Ronaldo joined Juventus
| Competition | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|
| World Cup Qualifiers | 42 | 33 |
| Euro Qualifiers | 35 | 31 |
| International friendlies | 51 | 19 |
| UEFA Euros | 25 | 14 |
| FIFA World Cups | 17 | 7 |
| UEFA Nations League | 6 | 5 |
| FIFA Confederations Cup | 4 | 2 |
Also Read: Messi vs Ronaldo: Analysing their International goals
Goal Scoring average before and after the age of 30:
Cristiano Ronaldo has just aged like a fine wine. It seems he is just getting better with age.
Ronaldo used to average 0.44 goals per game having scored 52 goals in 118 games. However, after he turned 30 his goalscoring average sky-rocketed to 0.95 with 59 goals in just 62 games; too good for a 36-year-old.
