Can Ronaldo Score 1000 Goals?

The Manchester United forward is already known as one of the greatest Footballers in the world. While Cristiano Ronaldo continues to be the leading goalscorer with 800+ goals in the World. The Portuguese forward has finally reached the peak of his prolific career with five Ballon d’or awards. Ronaldo, who was ranked 2nd among the world’s top forwards in ESPN’s FC 100 for 2021, finally reached the milestone of 1000 after making more than 1095 official senior appearances for Portugal.

Speaking of goals, the 37-years old athlete has reached the 800 goal mark leading him to become the top goalscorer of all time. Ronaldo has played for Real Madrid, Juventus and boyhood club sporting Cp in his career and now he is enrolled with United. 

Though Lionel Messi has become the 2022 FIFA World Cup Champion, he still needs to score over 30 goals to beat Ronaldo. Messi had been his widely popular rival for two decades. Meds is quite close to 2000 but he is also older providing he could retire from the game soon. 

Ronaldo has successfully achieved an all time record for 800+ senior goals since the time he was seventeen. The former United forward scored his first senior goal for his boyhood club Sporting CP against Moreirense on Oct 7, 2002. 

Ronaldo’s Career 1000 Goals

When a sports star has such a great career journey, how could anyone not be curious to dig it up. Now that Ronaldo has become one of the top and most popular sports celebrities, it’s worth recapping how he got here. 

Cristiano Ronaldo made his professional/senior debut in 2002 with Sporting and one year later he got a transfer to Manchester United in 2003. There he played as a winger and played with all his strength and strategies for next six year until he converted himself in a non-stop goalscoring machine. He left the top United players like Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney behind to become United’s Best Player. 

The Portuguese superstar went on to win titles including consecutive Premier League titles, European Shoe, Ballon d’or, etc. In 2007-08, the United Forward scored 42 goals in 49 matches for the club winning first Ballon d’or of his life. He kept one winning more awards each year although Messi gave him a tough competition. 

In 2009, Ronaldo joined Real Madrid for a transfer fee of £80 million making a world record. He spent nine years of his career at Real Madrid scoring goals at a rate of more than one goal per game. He won 15 trophies with the club including two La Liga titles and four Champions league. Scoring a total of 438 goals in 450 games for the club solely, no wonder he was awarded with four Ballon d’or trophies before he left the club in 2018. 

Then, Ronaldo joined Juventus where he continued playing at the same rate and pace netting goals at the rate of one goal per 1.33 games. During three seasons he won five trophies including two Serie A titles. Then, his career saw a shocking return to Premier League club Manchester United although it had no impact on his prodigious and prolific goal scoring ability. During his time in England, his goal tally for Champions League reached up to 140. 

International career

Let’s not forget his International career which actually brought him the shine he has. Though he started his senior career in 2002, he joined Portugal National team in 2003. Since then, Ronaldo represented his Nation in consecutive five FIFA World Cups. He also helped Portugal win the European Championship in 2016 and UEFA Nations League finals in 2009. In both the games, he was named as the all time top goalscorer as he broke Ali Daei’s long time world record for goals in Men’s International games. 

When will Cristiano Ronaldo retire?

As Ronaldo is getting older, the question keeps popping up when he is going to retire. Despite turning 37 this year, the Portuguese forward has maintained his strength and speed and still plays like he is in his 20s. Regardless of mid 30s being known as “twilight year”, Ronaldo has adapted to play at top level. 

He is yet to confirm when he is going to retire because Ronaldo hasn’t said a word about his retirement till date. His rival Messi has declared that in the upcoming years before the next World Cup he will retire from Argentina. But this doesn’t leave any impact on the United star.

Looks like Ronaldo is not ready to give up his career too soon as in some of his past interviews he claimed that he plans on playing until he turns 40 & score more then 1000 Goals. If his body allows him to play, he is willing to play for as long as he can.

In 2020, Ronaldo gave a statement to Marca that says, “Much will depend on what I feel, on my motivation. Physically it will never be a problem. I am treating myself well and I think I can play safely for up to 40 years. The most important factor, honestly, will be more psychological- that will be the one that makes the difference. 

Ronaldo might not be as fast as he used to be but he remains in primary position as a goal scorer as well as athlete. In fact, he is improving day by day with age given his plausible statistics. Two years after scoring his 700th goal on Oct 14, 2019, Ronaldo remarkably scored his 800th goal in 2021 becoming the leading goalscorer of all time. He is only a few years away from taking this number to 1000. But one thing is for sure that someone will probably ever beat his record. 

How much does Ronaldo rely on penalties?

It may not come as a surprise to you that Ronaldo is one of the top ten greatest penalty takers in the world. In fact, he is also referred to as the God of Penalty. Amazingly, the prolific United player has a 84% penalty conversion rate and he has scored a total of 144 penalty kick goals in his illustrious career. 

This is considered one of the reasons behind his incredible goal tally while some people might also use it as a reason to denigrate his famous goal tally. So, if Ronaldo continues to play football until he turns 40, we can expect 10 goals each year. At the end, it would add 40 more goals to his tally which is unbelievably fantastic. Ronaldo has played a total of 173 penalties out of which he lost 29 and converted the rest into goals. 

Has Ronaldo’s scoring rate dropped?

As Ronaldo is in his mid 30s and close to 40, many people wonder if his scoring rate has changed. Not so scientific but here we assume the possibility of Ronaldo successfully hitting the 1000 – goal milestone.

Before his career ends, his fans would most probably hear this happy news. Also, he is supposed to be playing until he turns 40, so he has enough time left to score more goals and make the tally 1000. He is dedicated to achieve this milestone given his commitment to fitness, professional motivation and personal conditioning. 

Most importantly, when Ronaldo is concerned, goals are not something to be worried about. He is the world’s only leading goalscorer and he scores goals like a fisherman catches fish. In his 19-years long career, his scoring rate has not drop below one goal every 2.5 games for any team. From the beginning of his senior Career, he has enjoyed a prolific scoring ability which is estimated to continue at the same pace. 

Can Ronaldo score 1000 goals?

Cristiano Ronaldo has already scored a total of 819 goals over his career of more than nineteenth years. Even in his last three campaigns, Ronaldo succeeded to maintain an average of 47 goals per 55 games in all the competitions. Due to Covid 19, there were no international fixtures resulting in lack of score during that period. That’s why we’re not including these years in our last three years’ average. 

Speaking of his scoring rate, if he can succeed scoring at the same rate consistently for the last four years of his career until he turns 40, he would be able to add 190 more goals to his tally overall. If we add 800 to 190, his tally would be 190, ten less than thousand. But that’s not a big deal as that could also be exceptionally achieved. 

Also, there is a possibility that if he increases his scoring rate, he will be able to score even more than 1000 goals until he turns 40. Yet, we can not exactly predict whether his scoring rate is going to improve or not. But when it comes to estimate Ronaldo’s ambitions, history says it’s better not to challenge him as he is a pro in achieving the impossible.