Ronaldo’s Record

Goal! The crowd is going wild after Cristiano Ronaldo scores his second goal for Portugal in the World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland. His teammate, Goncalo Guedes swung a beautiful cross pass from the right wing to Ronaldo who used his 6’2 explosive, robust frame to leap over Ireland defender Shane Duffy to score the historic goal in the qualifier, winning in a 2-1 comeback with both goals scored by Ronaldo.

It was a historic day for Ronaldo, not just in winning the game and qualifying for the World Cup, but also becoming the all time men’s international soccer scoring leader, with 111, surpassing Iran’s Ali Daei 109 goals as the top men's career international goal scorer. After the game Ronaldo stated "This record is mine and it is unique," Ronaldo said after the match. "I'm extremely happy and it's another one for my career. It's about motivation and the desire I have to continue playing football, also from this last contract I made, in which I was happy to return home. If we get up every day with the ambition to motivate and do better, to make the fans and our children happy, that is essential. It's another record for the museum.” Despite becoming the men's all time international leading scorer, the all time leading international scorer period is Canada’s national team captain Christine Sinclair, who is regarded as Canada’s greatest soccer player of all time.

Ronaldo became the first man to appear at five Euros, second overall only to Italy's Carolina Morace who has appeared at six tournaments, and his new record puts him eighth on the top-scorers list behind Abby Wambach, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Birgit Prinz, Carli Lloyd, Julie Fleeting, and Christine Sinclair.

Ronaldo has two major honours with Portugal, having led his country to success at Euro 2016 and the inaugural UEFA Nations League three years later and will be reuniting with Manchester United, the team he started his career with and had his ultimate rise to superstardom in the Premier League.