Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, as expected, said goodbye to the European Football Championship this Friday with a trophy full of records, but after an “empty” Euro 2024, without a single goal to “set up”.
In a career full of goals, now totalling 901, in 1,250 official games as a senior since 2002/03, the Portuguese ‘captain’ failed to score this time, something that had never happened to him in the final stages of a major tournament.
After winning consecutive major tournaments since Euro 2004, a total of five European Championships, five World Cups, as well as the Nations League and Confederations Cup, Ronaldo has now failed to make the cut at Euro 2024 despite starting five of Portugal’s matches.
In a campaign that ended this Friday in the quarter-finals with a 5-3 defeat to France on penalties, the current Al Nasr player thus failed to achieve his goal of scoring in a sixth European Championship and becoming the oldest player to do so in a final game, becoming the first to appear in six editions.
Despite this, Ronaldo, born on February 5, 1985, ends his European cycle with a slew of records, namely as the record holder for the most goals: 14, compared to the nine scored by Frenchman Michel Platini in 1984.
The current Al Nasr player is also, among other things, the footballer with the most games played (30), the most matches as captain (21), the most games scored (10) and the most wins (14).
In Portugal’s second game at Euro 2024, a 3-0 win over Turkey that saw them advance to the last 16, the Portuguese captain also provided the maximum number of assists, now adding the same number of assists as Czech and former Benfica player Karel Poborsky.
Playing for the Portuguese national team, Cristiano Ronaldo scored 130 goals in 212 AA matches, which set two world records at the national team level.