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With his second-half penalty against Ukraine at the Kyiv Olympic Stadium, Cristiano Ronaldo wrote his name into the record books once again as only the sixth player in history to have scored 700 career goals.
As you'd expect, the bulk of those goals have come at club level. Ronaldo has registered 605 goals across his four spells with Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, while 95 have been scored in the colors of Portugal.
With 700 career goals ticked off his to-do list, the narrative has understandably turned to whether the Madeira native can bag the next century and become the second player to score 800 goals before he hangs up his boots.
While there may be some plausible reasons why Ronaldo could reach that mark, it is also possible that he will fail to score 800 goals before he calls time on an illustrious career.
In this piece, we look at three reasons why Ronaldo will not cross the 800-goal mark.
#3 His numbers have been dwindling in recent years
Ronaldo deserves immense praise for his consistency throughout his career, particularly as he approached his 30s. However, a look at his numbers in recent years would show that his goals have been dwindling.
Between 2009 and 2012, Ronaldo posted better returns than the preceding year and In the 2013 calendar year, the Portuguese international had his best return, scoring 60 goals for club and country from just 59 matches. A year later he scored 61 from 60, and this marked the start of his dwindling returns.
Last year, he failed to hit the 50-goal mark for the first time in eight years. It looks likely that he will fail to achieve that once again this year; with a little over two months left, he has scored just 27 goals.
For all of his greatness, Ronaldo is not immune to the law of diminishing returns. And with his goal average reducing with each passing year, it is possible that he will not break the 800-goal barrier.
#2 Juventus' defensiveness
While Juventus might be the most dominant force in the history of Italian football, their superiority is founded upon defensive solidity rather than attacking prowess.
While taking nothing away from Ronaldo's extraterrestrial abilities as a goalscorer, his numbers in front of goal were undoubtedly boosted by Real Madrid's expansive and buccaneering style of play.
At the Bernabeu it is not just enough to win; the players are also expected to play attractive football every match and score goals by the bucketful. Playing aesthetically pleasing football is the norm rather than the exception at Real Madrid, and the club has always gone out of its way to get technically gifted players who are adept at creating goalscoring chances.
Ronaldo was undoubtedly a beneficiary of this, as he took his goalscoring exploits to extreme heights while donning the all-white of Los Blancos.
By contrast, Juventus have built a reputation of doggedness and pragmatism over the years, with victory being all that matters regardless of how it is achieved.
To put this in context, in Ronaldo's final three seasons in LaLiga, Real Madrid scored 110, 106, and 94 goals respectively. Meanwhile Juventus managed only 75, 77, and 86 in the same time-frame.
In his first season in Turin, the former Manchester United man scored just 28 goals in all competitions. That was his lowest tally in a season since his final year with the Red Devils over a decade ago.
Given Juventus' goal-shy nature, scoring goals would be a tougher task than usual for Ronaldo. That in turn would make it difficult for him to score another 100 goals before he hangs up his boots.
#1 His age has seen game-management creep into his style
While Cristiano Ronaldo might look as fit as a fiddle thanks to an extraordinary attention to detail and strict diet and workout regime, the bottom line is that he is 34 years old. There is only so much that exercising and dieting can do to limit the impact of nature.
Ronaldo has played top-level football for over 16 years now. It is undeniable that all those years of hard work have taken a toll on his body, as he is no longer the explosive force of nature he once was.
The first sign of that was the moment when he had to adjust his game to suit this new reality. He adapted to become more of a center-forward than the pacy winger we knew in yesteryear.
Kudos to him for slotting into the new role seamlessly. But despite the role change, Ronaldo has had to sit out an increasing number of games in recent times.
His ultra-competitiveness means that he will still strive to play as many marquee fixtures as possible. But common sense dictates that he sit out a lot of the less significant fixtures, thereby robbing him of opportunities to rack in goals against lesser teams.
After the World Cup last year, Ronaldo ruled himself out of international selection for the rest of the year. Moreover, he has not played 35 league games since the 2015-16 season.
With Ronaldo facing an ever-decreasing number of opponents every year, it stands to reason that his goal-return would take a nosedive, therefore making it harder for him to attain the 800-goal mark.
