Ronaldo reaches 900 career goals - the numbers behind the landmark

Cristiano Ronaldo reached a significant milestone on Thursday by scoring the 900th goal of his illustrious career.

The 39-year-old struck for Portugal in their Nations League game against Croatia, putting them 2-0 up.

It prompted an emotional celebration by the forward, as he dropped to his knees by the corner flag in tears.

The goal was his 131st for his country, while he has also scored at club level for Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and current club Al-Nassr.

Such is Ronaldo's longevity that if someone was born when he scored the first competitive goal of his career they would now be 21.

He struck a double for Portugal's Sporting on 7 October 7 2002, at the age of 17 years eight months and three days in a 3-0 win against Moreirense.

He then moved to Manchester United, scoring 118 goals in 293 games for the Red Devils before joining Real Madrid in 2009 for a then world record 94m euros (£80m).

In nine years at the Spanish giants he scored 450 goals before making the move to Italy to join Juventus.

He added another 101 goals to his tally during his three years with the Italian club before returning to United, where he would score 27 goals in 54 games.

But a return to the Red Devils did not have the fairytale ending and in 2023 he made the move to Saudi Arabia with Al-Nassr where he has got 68 goals and counting.

There is no central database to establish men's football's all-time top scorer, but Ronaldo was already leading the way for official games at a high level.

The Czech football association says Josef Bican, who played in Czechoslovakia and Austria, scored 821 goals in official matches. Elsewhere his tally is placed at 805 - but those include reserve-team and non-official international goals.

Brazil legends Pele and Romario separately claim to have scored more than 1,000 goals each, but filter out friendlies and those numbers drop down to the 700s.

Unofficial statisticians RSSSF,, external say Pele (769), Romario and Ferenc Puskas (both 761) are the players nearest to Ronaldo at the elite end of football.

Lionel Messi, Ronaldo's long-time rival has scored 867 career goals to date.

Time is not on Ronaldo's side since he is now 39, but the veteran is determined to keep on playing until he has reached the incredible figure of 1,000 career goals.

Speaking to his former Manchester United team-mate Rio Ferdinand in an interview on his YouTube channel, Ronaldo said he was confident he could hit the milestone within the next couple of years.

"I want to reach 1,000 goals," he said.

"If I don't have any injuries, this for me is the most important [thing], I want that.

"All the goals I have scored, they have video."