Cristiano Ronaldo breaks Greaves' goalscoring record
Ronaldo opened the scoring for Real Madrid in Balaídos to overtake Jimmy Greaves as the player with the most goals in the top five European leagues. Then added another.
Cristiano Ronaldo broke Jimmy Greaves' goalscoring record with a finely-struck shot to put Real Madrid into the lead against Celta Vigo. That goal saw the Portuguese phenomenon move on to 367 goals in the top five European leagues. He then added another to make it 368.
Balaídos became the setting for the record-break as Cristiano Ronaldo seized upon a loose ball to rifle a left-footed shot in to the top corner, after ten minutes. It was a fitting way to achieve the landmark.
Top scorers of the top leagues
Both Greaves and Ronaldo had sat together at the top of the goalscorers' table on 366 ahead of the game in Vigo, with Cristiano leapfrogging German hero, Gerd Müller with his brace against Sevilla last time out. The Portuguese megastar has an average across these league games of 0.8 goals per game (368 in 460) and the English legend a ratio of 0.69 (366 in 530).
Madrid improvement after impressive United start
Real Madrid's number seven has split his goal tally between the English Premier League, following his move in 2003 from Sporting, and Spain's LaLiga. For Manchester United he scored 84 goals in 196 games (0.42 per game) and after moving to the Spanish capital has seen this improve to an incredible 1.08 goals per game, with goalkeepers around Spain having to pick the ball out of the net 285 times in the 265 times Ronaldo has been on the pitch. Like a good wine, age has served him well.
It was the opposite for Greaves who had his best goals return between the ages of 17 and 21 when at Chelsea. There the striker had a goal average of 0.78 (124 in 157). The Englishman hung up his boots at the age of 31 whereas Cristiano, at 32, is still doing the business at the very highest level...with no signs of letting up soon.
Messi could still out-score Cristiano
It's worth noting that in the table there is only one other player in the top 15 still plying his trade. Lionel Messi is expected to continue with Barcelona and is only 22 goals behind Cristiano.
| Classification | PTS | WM | TM | LM |
|---|
| Upcoming matches |
|---|