Cristiano Ronaldo: 20 shots, no goals at Euro 2016
Cristiano Ronaldo has taken more shots than 11 teams at Euro 2016, but he's yet to score. Portugal wait to see if he can turn it around against Hungary.
Cristiano Ronaldo left the Parc des Princes on Saturday evening in a funk and with no desire to talk, after drawing 0-0 with Austria and having missed a penalty. The Portuguese international had just become the most capped Portuguese international, with 128 appearances for his country, and had equalled Thuran and Van der Sar as the footballer with the most Euro appearances (16), but these were mere dry statistics compared to the reality of a nil-nil draw against Austria, in which in addition to the penalty miss Ronaldo let three clear scoring chances escape him.
Ronaldo has had 20 efforts on goal without scoring
With all the teams at Euro 2016 having played two games, Cristiano Ronaldo is the player in the tournament who has taken most shots at goal, a full 20 of them. The Real Madrid striker on his own has had more efforts than Albania (Albania subsequently scored with their 20th shot, against Romania), Hungary, Austria, Wales, Czech Republic, Turkey, Romania, Russia, Northern Ireland, Sweden and Iceland. And yet... he's still not scored.
Ronaldo: "I'm sad"
Ronaldo himself admitted to being down in the dumps over the matter: "I'm sad because not only did I miss the penalty, but also other chances. But I've no doubt Portugal will go through".
Out and out striker
In the two games he's played so far Ronaldo has set himself out as Portugal's out and out striker. Rather than appearing in the box, he's hovering in it. But despite facing two of the supposedly weaker teams at Euro 2016 he's failed to convert any of his chances, despite having so many.
In fact, against Austria, without playing particularly well, he could have easily had a hat-trick. Almer, the Austrian keeper, made the save of his life to stop a long range Cristiano effort, saved two shots that were close to his body and saw a snap shot in the six yard box from Ronaldo go flying past the post. And if that weren't enough, he watched Ronaldo smack his penalty off the post with 10 minutes to go.
Ronaldo: missed four out of last five penalties
Ronaldo at the moment isn't on form with his penalties, which he previously appeared to have down to a fine art. He's missed four out of his last five for club and country (without taking into account penalties in shoot-outs, where he did convert his most important recent spot-kick, the one to win the Undécima, Madrid's 11th European Cup).
In direct free-kicks, where he's always been less reliable, he's now had 36 efforts without hitting the back of the net.
In Portugal nobody doubts him, but his lack of goals is beginning to cause concern. All eyes now turn to the match against Hungary, with qualification at stake, to see if Ronaldo can score, and smile, again.