900 Up: The Stats Behind Cristiano Ronaldo's Stellar Career Ahead of Landmark Portugal Appearance

Author:
90 Min
Publish date:
Mar 23, 2018

Real Madrid and Portugal living legend Cristiano Ronaldo is set to play the 900th game of his incredible career on Friday night as he prepares to lead out his country against Egypt.

At the age of 33, to have played so many games is a testament to the way that Ronaldo has trained and taken such good care of himself ever since breaking through at Sporting CP as a 17-year-old.

He is already Portugal's most capped player by some distance and the game will be Ronaldo's 148th at senior international level. He has scored 79 goals since making his debut in 2003, second only to Hungary's Ferenc Puskas in all-time international goals scored by a European.

Ronaldo played 31 times for Sporting, 292 times for Manchester United, and is currently on 429 appearances for Real after nine years with Los Blancos.

Portuguese outlet Record has calculated that he has won exactly 600 games in his career so far.

The newspaper has also recorded the various appearance milestones, with his very first senior game for Sporting coming against Inter Milan in a Champions League qualifier in August 2002.

Ronaldo played the 100th game of his career in a Manchester United shirt in a famous win at Old Trafford that ended Arsenal's 49-game unbeaten run. His 200th was an international for Portugal against Luxembourg, while game 300 saw him face Reading for United.

The 400th was his first taste of El Clásico as Real Madrid took on Barcelona, while his 500th, 600th and 700th games were all at club level. And the 800th saw Ronaldo score twice as Portugal drew 3-3 with Hungary at Euro 2016 en-route to the country's first silverware.