On Saturday, Cristiano Ronaldo can take a big step towards his first major trophy since moving to Saudi Arabia, but the Asian Champions League quarter-final against Yokohama F. Marinos also brings the opportunity for a smaller but personally important step towards the incredible achievement of 1.000 goals at the highest level, reports the Guardian.
Pele scored many goals, but the claim of a total of 1.279 goals, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, includes unofficial and exhibition matches, and even, as Diego Maradona joked, perhaps backyard matches against his nephews. The statistics website RSSSF credits the Brazilian with a total of 778 goals.
Ronaldo currently has 933. This month, after scoring twice for Al-Nasr in a 3-1 win over Al-Hilal in the Riyadh derby, he downplayed the significance of the number. "People, let's enjoy the moment, the present," he said. "I'm not chasing 1.000 goals. If I score them, great. If I don't, it's not the end of the world," the Portuguese added.
However, in a conversation with Rio Ferdinand last August, he was more assertive: "For me, that's the best record I can have in football, to get to 900 goals first. After that, my challenge is 1.000," he said, insisting that there was no doubt about the accuracy of his figures, although he was not as humorous as Maradona. "All my goals have video footage. So I can prove they're real. If I get injured, I want to reach that number."
At 40, even for a player in exceptional physical condition, the number of games and scoring opportunities is slowly dwindling, but Ronaldo is still regularly scoring. Last season he broke the Saudi Pro League record with 35 goals. This season he is back at the top of the goalscoring charts with 23. There have been rumours that Gianni Infantino wants to hand him a call-up from one of the 32 participating clubs in the Club World Cup (31, to be precise, as it is clear that he will never play for bitter rivals Al-Hilal), potentially giving him a few more games this summer.
There are also upcoming appearances for the Portuguese national team from June. In March, he scored his 136th goal for the national team, which is of course a record in men's football, as well as at least one more match in the Asian Champions League in the coming days.
The five-time Ballon d'Or winner already has seven goals in the competition and believes he can do more against Yokohama, especially since he is rested, having not played in Al-Nasr's 3-2 win over Damac on Tuesday (it was only their second win in seven games without Ronaldo this season). The Japanese team are currently bottom of the J1 League table. After three successive Australian coaches, Ainge Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat, who brought them titles, and Harry Kewell, who led them to the final of last season's Champions League but was sacked due to poor domestic results, Steve Holland, Gareth Southgate's former assistant in England, was appointed in late December. He was sacked on Good Friday after just four months in charge and without much impact.
Neither the form nor the format of the competition are in Yokohama's favor. From the quarter-finals onwards (the final is played on May 3), all matches are played to a best-of-three finish in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Home-field advantage works in Ronaldo's favor, as he wants to play as many matches as possible for both club and country.
There are some doubts in Portugal, which have been further reinforced during the 2024 European Championship, about whether Ronaldo still deserves a place in the national team and whether his personal achievements are potentially becoming a burden on the team. "Ronaldo is at a stage in his career where he needs to start putting the team before himself," Dietmar Hamann said last July, adding that he would be surprised if the striker reached 1.000 goals. "I don't think he can play that long."
However, this week Luis Figo expressed a completely different opinion, predicting that his compatriot could be a starter at the next World Cup, and that even at the age of 42, he will still score goals.
There is little debate about Ronaldo's effectiveness in Saudi Arabia. There, he is the undisputed face of his club, which he joined in December 2022, and of the league itself. Public doubts are rare but occasionally audible. Al-Nasr coach Stefano Pioli has been criticised for failing to develop a more attractive, attacking style of football, but former Al-Hilal official Ibrahim al-Ankari said last week that this was not entirely the Italian's fault. "Every coach will struggle if he has Cristiano Ronaldo in his team," he said. "If you don't create a clear opportunity for him, he won't be in the game."
That comment may seem harsh, considering some of the goals Ronaldo has scored, former Al-Nasr ace Hashem Sorour said that only Al-Hilal fans or those who know nothing about football criticize Ronaldo, but the fact is that the days of him running all over the pitch are long gone.
Still, the hunger for goals is there. Being 67 goals away from the mark on the other side of 2026 is not easy, but Ronaldo is still playing and still scoring. His contract in Riyadh expires this summer, but most expect it to be extended for another season, until the 1.000 World Cup. And what happens after that will likely depend on how close he gets to that magical XNUMX mark.
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