Cristiano Ronaldo: 980 career goals and 20 to go
Cristiano Ronaldo has 7 Saudi Pro League goals for Al Nassr and 980 in his career, 20 short of 1,000. Here is why he still draws football's biggest audience.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the most followed footballer on Instagram and the most closely counted. The latest count we could find is 980 career goals, with 1,000 now a practical target rather than a joke.
The numbers
Ummid reports that his goal against Diriyah on 9 October, in a 3-0 Al Nassr win, was his 980th, leaving him 20 short. We found no report of a later goal, but the figure is from before Al Nassr's 20 October match with Neom. ESPN's Saudi Pro League table has him on 7 league goals from 10 matches, joint third in the scoring chart. He is level on seven with Alexandre Lacazette, Mateo Retegui and Youssef En-Nesyri, behind Al Qadsiah's Tijjani Reijnders on eight.
He is not the league's top scorer. That is Ivan Toney of Al Ahli, with 13 in 9 games, according to ESPN. Ronaldo's assists do not appear in the table, so we do not have a figure.
Ummid's 20 October preview had Al Nassr third in the league on 19 points from 8 matches, behind leaders Al Hilal on 24. That table is ten days old.
Why he still matters
IBTimes had him on 671 million Instagram followers in February, 160 million ahead of Messi. No other footballer comes close, so any goal he scores is a global story, even in a league that most of the audience will never watch.
What nobody else does
Ronaldo has built a career on being in the right spot in the box, and at this stage of it, position matters more than pace. He picks where the cross will land before most defenders have read it, then gets there first.
The other thing no one else has done is turn a goal tally into a running storyline. Ummid's preview was built entirely around how many he might score that night.
What's next
Twenty goals. At the 0.7 league goals per match he has this season, it is a project for the next year, not a month.
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