Portugal’s Star Man and the BEST footballer on the planet alongside Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 100th and 101st goal while donning the national team colours and became the 2nd player to reach the landmark of 100 International Goals after Ali Daei who has scored 109 times for Iran.
The Juventus superstar had been stuck on 99 since November but finally broke the duck in trademark spectacular fashion when he rattled home a superb first-half free kick to score 100 international goals as Portugal outclassed 10-man Sweden 2-0 in their Nations League fixture on Tuesday.
His 101st Goal came in the 72nd minutes, when the Juventus forward curled in a second goal from the edge of the penalty area and gave the goalkeeper no chance to stop his 101st. Cristiano Ronaldo has had a tremendous career to look back at but scoring a century of Goals for his Nation must be really special to the Portuguese Skipper.
The next closest player behind him is Malaysia’s Mokhtar Dahari, who played from 1972-1986, with 85 goals, whilst Indian Skipper Sunil Chhetri is the closest active player to Ronaldo. India’s no. 11 has 72 international goals, two ahead of Lionel Messi’s tally of 70 goals for Argentina and time is surely not on their side to reach Cristiano’s tally of 101 goals.
For anyone to break the 5 time ballon d’or winner’s record in international goals, Cristiano Ronaldo needs to stop first and that’s not happening anytime soon because Ronaldo keeps getting better and better.
He scored 52 goals in 118 appearances for his country before the age of 30, at a rate of 0.44 goals per game. Since hitting 30, he has accelerated toward 100 by scoring 49 goals in 47 internationals, at a rate of 1.04 goals per game.
Now Cristiano Ronaldo has reached the triple figure mark it’s a matter of when and not if he beats Iranian legend Ali Daei.