Cristiano Ronaldo is an amazing player. He was already a world class talent during his time at Manchester United but has taken his game to a new level at Real Madrid. Breaking records one after another seems his usual habit nowadays and the question remains – how far can he go from here. His limit? Well, only he knows.
He has scored in all the league games so far, managing 12 goals in 8 matches with an impressive average of 1.09 goals per game. In the last match against Elche, he scored four in Real Madrid’s 5-1 victory, taking his hat-trick tally to 21 in the La Liga; only one short of equalling the records of Telmo Zarra and Alfredo Di Stefano.
With 264 goals for Real Madrid, Ronaldo is the fourth highest goal scorer for the Los Blancos and is only 59 short of club legend Raul Gonzalez to become the all time goal scorer at the club. He is also the first Real Madrid player to have scored in 13 consecutive homes games, and should he continues to score at this rate, there is every possibility he could break Raul’s record by the end of this season.
Ronaldo has a contract till 2018; three and a half years more at Real Madrid. Even if he scores at the rate of 51 goals per season, which is his lowest tally (2013-14) since he joined the club, he should reach an astonishing figure of 456 goals in the next three seasons making him the all time leading goal scorer in the league; to achieve it in only nine seasons, would be spectacular.
Furthermore, he is only five goals shy of becoming all time leading scorer in the European competitions, a record which Raul currently holds with 76 goals. Although, Barcelona wizard Lionel Messi with 68 goals should give him a tough fight here.
Messi with 246 goals to his name could go on to break all records as well, and being younger to Ronaldo, he is expected to play much longer.
Both Messi and Ronaldo are greatest of this era, but with the later a certain subjective emotions run through that is often neglected in any comparison between the two.
Messi has played all his life in Barcelona; it is his comfort zone. Same cannot be said about Ronaldo. The boy from Madeira left his home town club at the age of 18 to join one of the biggest clubs in England, to fill the boots of an iconic figure, David Beckham, at Manchester United. Not only he achieved huge success but earned the status of a club legend in six years’ time. He could have stayed at United forever and carved his career in a different way, but he left his comfort zone again to test himself against a new (different and difficult) challenge and at a probably bigger platform. And now he is on course to making a history. Take a bow!
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