5 Reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo is the Greatest of All Time

3. The only “bargain” world-record signing

When he went from United to Madrid in 2009, he cost Los Blancos a record 94 million euros, smashing the previous world record set by Kaka earlier that same year (to the same club, as it was) and very few have actually lived up to the hype. If people thought his goalscoring was incredible for Manchester United, he was about to take it to a whole new, unprecedented, level in the capital of Spain.

He is already the highest scorer in the long, storied, history of Real Madrid. In 265 league games, he has 285 goals at a rate of 1.08 goals a game. In total, he has 406 in 394 at 1.03 a game. Not only is this unprecedented, it is utterly mind-boggling.

We have seen him do this so frequently that it has numbed us to the sheer enormity, the sheer volume, of his goals.

It’s not just the football, either. His mere presence has augmented the already considerable brand image of Real Madrid and has strengthened their business continuity model, their revenues, and their fan-base around the globe like no one before him.

Not only have they got back what they spent on Ronaldo – football-wise and money-wise – but they’ve in fact made much, much more. It’s probably the only time in the history of football that anyone signed in excess of 90 million Euros will ever be considered a “bargain”.