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Ronaldo to make 1,000th senior appearance today [See his incredible goal stats]

Published

February 22, 2020

Cristiano Ronaldo is set to make the 1,000th senior appearance of his illustrious career when Juventus travel to SPAL in Serie A on Saturday.

The Portugal star has played 835 games in club football and 164 on the international stage, scoring 724 goals in the process.

The five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s extraordinary career began at Sporting in Lisbon, where he made 31 appearances from 2002 to 2003 before moving to Manchester United, aged 18.

After six years and 292 appearances at United, Ronaldo joined Real Madrid in 2009 and remained there until 2018 when he made the switch to Juventus.

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Ronaldo really hit his scoring stride in the 2006-07 season when he struck more than 20 goals in a season for the first time. The consistency since then has been nothing short of phenomenal.

He has got better with age, particularly at the international level. After hitting single-figure totals in his first 10 seasons with Portugal, he has scored 10 or more goals in three of the past four seasons.

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Real Madrid have benefited most from Ronaldo’s rich form – 450 of his 724 career goals having been scored for the Spanish giants, for whom he made 438 appearances – considerably more than for any other team.

He scored five goals in his 31 games for Sporting, 118 in 292 appearances for Manchester United, 99 in 164 for Portugal and is currently on 52 in 72 for Juventus.

Of his 724 goals during his career, 27 have come against Sevilla – his favourite opponents.

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The English club he has scored the most against in all competitions are Tottenham Hotspur (10).

His first career hat-trick was for Manchester United against Newcastle in a 6-0 win on 12 January 2008.

He has gone on to score 55 further hat-tricks but amazingly that first one was the only time he hit a treble in a match for United.

His latest hat-trick came against Cagliari in a 4-0 win for Juventus on 6 January this year.

BBC