Cristiano Ronaldo has long sealed his status as one of the greatest soccer players of all time. The Portuguese forward has performed at the top level over and over again in countries like England, Spain, and Italy and is now doing it in the Middle East with the Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr.
Cristiano Ronaldo clocked 39 a few days ago, but his strength continues to carry on despite his ripe old age. Ronaldo is by far Al-Nassr’s best player, and he reached a new career milestone in the club’s latest game against Al-Feiha in the AFC Champions League first-leg match.
Cristiano Ronaldo scores on 1000th club appearance
Whoever thinks Cristiano Ronaldo’s legs are growing weaker, with him being 39 years old now, clearly has no idea what material the former Real Madrid man is built of. Al-Nassr’s AFC Champions League game against Al-Feiha was Cristiano Ronaldo’s 1000th club appearance in his career. He marked this occasion with a late goal to give his club an advantage over fellow Saudi Pro League side.
This appearance took Ronaldo’s total to 1241, making him have the most appearances for any active player in the game, ahead of Lionel Messi. Ronaldo is only behind Peter Shilton, Fabio, and Paul Bastock on the ranking of players with the most appearances in the history of the game.
Lionel Messi lies in 16th position with 1102 career appearances and may never match Cristiano Ronaldo’s number in this aspect, as the Portuguese is showing no signs of slowing down and may even be active even after Messi retires despite being two years older than the World Cup winner.
Most of those appearances came from his time at Real Madrid, with Ronaldo making 438 appearances for the Los Blancos. He also made 346 appearances for Manchester United over two spells. He has made 134 appearances for Juventus, 31 for Sporting CP, and 51 for Al-Nassr so far.
Looking at Cristiano Ronaldo’s goalscoring record throughout his career
Cristiano Ronaldo is a goal machine, although he wasn’t always one. The young Ronaldo was a showboater, which was what Sir Alex Ferguson saw in him in the friendly match between Sporting CP and Manchester United. While at Sporting CP, Ronaldo only managed to score five goals in his few months with the first team.
Ronaldo’s game developed further at Manchester United, where he would end up with 145 goals in 346 appearances for the club over two spells, with the last one coming in 2021. It was at Real Madrid that Cristiano Ronaldo found his best position. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner joined the Los Blancos in 2009 and left in 2018 as their all-time leading goalscorer with 450 goals, four UEFA Champions League titles, and four more Ballon d’Or awards.
He quickly stopped in Italy with Juventus, where he managed to score 101 goals in 134 appearances. So far at Al-Nassr, he has scored 39 goals in 45 appearances.
