Berlin: When Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo arrived at the World Cup in Qatar, wanted to present the World Cup as a reminder of his career to win the most expensive title in the world. But Ronaldo’s World Cup career ended while he was in a state of stupor, and cried profusely as he was carried to the locker room, after the team had lost against its Moroccan counterpart, 0-1, in the quarter-finals at the “Al-Thumama” stadium. A tournament to forget for the 37-year-old, who was left out of the starting lineup in the round of 16 against Switzerland before coming on as a second-half substitute against Morocco. This participation was disappointing for Ronaldo, but he will never diminish his previous successes at international level, whether or not he continues his career with the Portuguese national team. In addition to being the top scorer in international matches in men’s competitions, Ronaldo led Portugal to their first title in a major tournament at the 2016 European Nations Cup in France, before snatching the European Nations League title, and it seems unlikely his numbers will be matched with the national team anytime soon. Ronaldo has received a lot of praise during his career, as he was decisive in many big ones match from his youth until the end of his international career, and played for the Portuguese national team 196 games which put him in first line in the most attended classification in national team, as Joao Moutinho’s name emerges as its direct competitor with 146 caps in national. And if the balance of his goalposts can be threatened in the long run, then his scoring numbers look less vulnerable to that danger, as Ronaldo has scored 118 goals internationally, which is more than double Pedro’s goals. Pauleta, who ranks second in Portugal’s historic goalscorers chart with 47 goals and is also an unmatched number in the world. Ali Daei, Iran’s top scorer, is the only other player to have scored the most goals at international level, with 109 goals in national. Ronaldo failed to score a goal in his prime two games for the Portuguese national team when he was 18 in 2003, but managed to score at least one goal in nationwide over the next 19 years. In 2004, Ronaldo scored seven goals in national in 16 games, to help his country reach the final of the European Championship in his country in the same year, and scored a goal every 145 minutes. Ronaldo’s best year internationally was 2019 when he scored 14 goals in only 10 appearances in national team, at the rate of one goal every 59 minutes. At the level of clubRonaldo scored many goals in the European Champions League for Manchester United and Real Madrid, in Spain, as he is the competition’s historic scorer with 140 goals. It seems that Ronaldo prefers to play within the continent with the Portuguese national team, as he has scored 14 goals in European Nations, which is a record, in which the Portuguese star is five goals ahead of the French Michel Platini. Ronaldo also scored seven goals in just 11 matches in the European Nations League, and achieved his greatest success for the national team by winning the 2016 European Nations League and the 2018/19 European Nations League. But things are different for the World Cup, and although he has scored eight goals in his participation in the tournament, which is a number that cannot be underestimated, but those goals came in the group stage, no other player has scored a large number of goals without scoring in the knockout stage. Ronaldo became the first player in tournament history to score in five different versions of the World Cup, when he scored a goal against Ghana from a penalty kick in the group stage, but this record it might not mean much with his team’s failure in the biggest tournament in the world. Ronaldo may have failed to get his hands on the best and most important cup of the international tournament, but the failure of this hasn’t stopped him from star such as the Dutchman Johan Cruyff and the Hungarian Ferenc Puskas to be considered among the best and greatest players in the history of that sport. 24 of the 118 goals scored by the Portuguese star have comein World Cup, European Nations Cup and Confederations Cup, and only 20 goals were in friendly matches, which indicates his great position as a player who shines and shines on big occasions.
