Cristiano Ronaldo’s ‘World Record’ Questioned as He’s Yet to Score a Genuine Goal for Portugal
Cristiano Ronaldo’s most recent blatant stat-padding against Armenia and Hungary has increased his world-record total of international goals to an absolutely ridiculous 141.
Naturally, that got us to thinking right away. Harry Kane, the so-called great goal scorer, has already been shown to be a complete fraud, so surely we can expose this shameful goal-hogger as well? We did tell you that this would become a series.
There are a lot of targets to eliminate this time. However, it was strangely easy to get rid of a great number of them. gets you to reflect.
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Starting total of Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal goals: 143
Friendly matches goals: 21
The fact that only one of Ronaldo’s 22 goals in friendly have come from the penalty spot is fantastic news since it means we can quickly eliminate another sizable number of goals.
Because of your Nations Leagues and other events, there aren’t as many friendly as there used to be, which contributes to Ronaldo’s career length.
We just do not count friendly games in other sports, or even in club football, as we noted in our Harry Kane Fraudulence Revealer. Stats should only be used for legitimate, competitive games; exhibition games have no place there.
Here, Ronaldo loses goals against Argentina, Croatia, the Netherlands, and Belgium—all of which are obviously improper goals, as well as a few recent matches against Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Luxembourg, Estonia, and Andorra.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 100
The Penalty goals: 22
Of all the fake target fruit, we will always start with the lowest hanging fruit. Except for the goalie, who isn’t permitted to protect it effectively, is no one even permitted to defend it from twelve yards out?
It is embarrassing for any player to have these on their career stats, but it is more embarrassing for someone who, after being free of these blatant non-counters, still leaves us with more than 100 goals to eliminate.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 121
Portugal’s five goals in (other) games where they scored 6+
Many of these flimsy goals come from friendly action or the spot, so it doesn’t eliminate as many as you might hope.
The two very significant goals that gave Portugal a 1-0 and 3-1 lead in what was for a long time a tense Euro 2012 qualification play-off against Bosnia that ultimately ended up 6-2 against 10 men are cruelly eliminated, as are a couple of goals that were relatively early in an absurd 7-1 victory over Russia in 2006 World Cup qualifying.
ught with a sixth goal in the 87th minute of a 7-0 victory over North Korea at the 2010 World Cup (he only managed one goal against Finland during that span, even in friendly).
More appropriately, it marks the end of Ronaldo’s two-year scoring drought for competitive internationals (he only scored one goal against Finland during that time in friendlies) with a sixth goal in the 87th minute of a 7-0 victory over North Korea at the 2010 World Cup, which is arguably the most impressive non-penalty goal ever.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 66
The 21 goals of Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Andorra, and the Faroe Islands
Ronaldo has helped himself to a few more goals against Europe’s lighter weights, even though he has never dipped his bread Kane-style against San Marino.
There are additional goals against this group in addition to all those against Luxembourg. All of his goals for Andorra occurred in games that were ostensibly competitive, with the exception of one that was in a friendly.
Some of the games were contested because of Portugal’s sometimes mysterious (but eventually successful) strategy for qualifying for big tournaments. However, nothing as ludicrous as that can spare them from execution.
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It’s another poor performance for us, and Ronaldo’s supposedly unbeatable world record goal total is abruptly lowered to only a few more international goals than Robbie Keane. Four of the remaining goals have already been eliminated by removing penalties.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 71
The 14 so-called goals of the Nations League
As far as international break football is concerned, we have no problem with the Nations League.
If you can’t find amusement in all the “England is appointing Sam Allardyce so they don’t get relegated” jokes that turn out to be surprisingly prophetic, then what’s wrong with you? It does make for more competitive games.
However, before we accept it as a legitimate big competition, we will be dead in the cold. Friends that have been glorified are still friends. More significantly, it eliminates yet another double-figure haul.
In addition to a half-brace against Poland, in which the other goal was doubly-fraudulent for coming from the penalty spot, five of those goals came in two games against Switzerland, including a semi-final hat-trick that is very funny to ignore.
There was also, amusingly, another goal in a quarterfinal matchup with a really good Denmark team, followed by the winning goal in a semi-final matchup against real Germany and, well, the final matchup against European champions Spain. But we must be cruel.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 52
The 8 goals against Luxembourg
Portugal’s San Marino seems to be Luxembourg. To his credit, Ronaldo has never degraded himself to the level at which Kane has scored a ridiculous amount of his England goals against San Marino. However, he has scored 11 goals in his match versus Luxembourg.
I mean, it’s embarrassing. Ronaldo is just a hair ahead of Neymar (note to self: add Neymar to the list) in terms of international goals, even though two of them were penalties and one was, regrettably, in a friendly.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 92
The 16 Goals for the Euro Qualifiers are now a formality
Even by previous standards, this is a fraud, considering Ronaldo’s career dates back to the days before there was a 24-team open goal for qualifying for the Euros. However, we’re still getting rid of everything because there are so many objectives and requirements.
Ronaldo has scored 41 goals for Portugal in just the European Championship qualifying matches. Alan Shearer, on the other hand, scored 30 goals for England overall. Those are important. We’ve shown that Ronaldo’s don’t.
Unfortunately, a lot of these goals have already been abandoned since they were penalties, against Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, or in matches where Portugal scored six goals, or a mix of the aforementioned. Although it brings us much closer to our goal by subtracting a healthy 21 goals from our total.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 35
The 1 goal of the Confederations Cup
Compared to the Nations League, it is not as much of a tournament. Unfortunately, the goal scored by CR7 against the formidable New Zealand came from the penalty spot and has already been removed from the record. However, every little bit helps, and we did eliminate a goal against Russia three days before.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 51
The 27 Goals of the Non-Elite Opposition
Correct. We can now, against all odds, eliminate all of Ronaldo’s remaining goals in one massively unjust sweep, which is when it starts to get desperate (or “starts”) but also incredibly fruitful. Penalties have been eliminated.
Friendly matches, tinpot competitions, European qualifying matches, and goals in matches Portugal didn’t even win have all been eliminated.
Now what? The big ol’ scam has scored a tonne of goals over a very long period of time, yet all we have left are things that are even more nebulous and senseless than that tiny lot. No one predicted that this would be simple.
Here, we have developed the useful and productive catch-all term “non-elite,” which, for our purposes, is any side that has never won a World Cup. Although this is a challenging school, we must eliminate some really significant tournament goals versus the Netherlands.
Is it not our fault that they consistently bottle finals? We’re off to a wonderful start because we instantly give away the game to our teak-tough concept of “elite” in our victory over the Dutch in the Euro 2004 semi-final.
Several of Ronaldo’s seven 2006 World Cup qualifying goals had previously been eliminated, but the final five against Estonia and Slovakia are now also no longer included.
We don’t need to be bothered by a goal in a 3-1 victory over the Czechs at Euro 2008, two more goals against the Netherlands at Euro 2012, and another goal against the Czechs four years after his earlier, now-found to be false, attempt against them.
Since neither Sweden nor Northern Ireland have ever won the World Cup, two hat-tricks in qualifying for the 2014 tournament are easy meat for us here.
There is also a fourth goal from that qualifying campaign against Sweden. Aren’t we racking them up now? A goal against Wales in a rare Portugal victory en route to Euro 2016 “glory” can also be gleefully dismissed.
Another rich seam is qualification for the 2018 World Cup. We’re suddenly pleased that Hungary didn’t win the World Cup back when they were terrific, and three of Ronaldo’s four goals in two games against Latvia can go, with the other presumably being a penalty.
Although everyone now adores Morocco, Ronaldo’s goal against them in Russia is nullified because they have yet to win the World Cup and were not even close to doing so in 2018 or anytime before.
In addition to Ronaldo’s other, non-penalty goal against Hungary, four of his five goals from Euro 2020 have already been deleted.
Not to mention those ridiculously late goals in the team’s comeback 2-1 victory over the Republic of Ireland to earn a spot in the 2022 World Cup? You cheap irrelevances, good-bye.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 0
Not a single goal was scored by the 8 Portuguese
In Ronaldo’s situation, this is particularly contentious because, during Euro 2016, he and Portugal spent an entire tournament teasing each other that you can win a tournament without actually trying to win games.
We’re scraping off two goals in a 3-3 draw against Hungary, which guaranteed Portugal’s back-door path to a matchup with Croatia in the tournament’s last-16, but it’s a horribly unethical way to win a pot.
Speaking about Hungary, they qualified for the 2026 World Cup by chalking off another two goals from a 2-2 tie. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Dominik Szoboszlai for his equaliser in injury time during the match.
We may also exclude Ronaldo’s first-ever goal for his country, which came as a consolation in injury time during a foreboding Euro 2004 group-stage loss to Greece.
The fact that we were able to eliminate two-thirds of a hat-trick against Spain at Russia 2018 due to his clownshoe defense’s inability to stop the ball at the other end (one of his three goals was, of course, a penalty) and the fact that the opening goal in what would end up being a terrible 4-2 loss to Germany at Euro 2020 also vanishes from the record is perhaps even hilarious.
Unfortunately, his two goals in the tournament’s 2-2 draw with France were humiliating penalties that had already been dealt with before we began to fully consider the decisions we made in life that brought us to this point.
New goal total for Ronaldo: 27
