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With three official appearances for Juventus in the Serie A, the world has gotten used to seeing Cristiano Ronaldo in the white and black of the Bianconeri, after nine spectacular seasons with Real Madrid in Spain.
Ronaldo is an icon who has set and broken numerous records throughout his career, and he alongside Messi are considered to be by far the best of their generation and rightly mentioned in the debates over the Greatest of All Time.
The Madeira native is a renowned goalscorer and has won a record number of UEFA Champions League Golden Boots among other records.
His goalscoring exploits have also seen him crowned as leading marksman in both the Premier League and La Liga, and Ronaldo would look to become the first man in history to win the Golden Boots in the top flights of Spain, England and Italy. However, after three Serie A matches, the 33-year-old is yet to open his Juventus account.
Although there is no denying Ronaldo's greatness and ability to constantly rise above cynicism and exceed expectations, it would be an arduous task for him to finish as the Serie A top goalscorer. Here are seven reasons why it would be difficult for Ronaldo to finish as Serie A's Capocannoniere.
#7 Juventus' conservative style of play
Ronaldo has had the luxury of playing for mostly out and out attacking sides for most of his career, and the higher emphasis placed on attacking potency than defensive solidity at Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson and at Real Madrid over the last nine seasons ensured that Ronaldo's attacking instinct was maximized to its full potential.
At Juventus however, Cristiano would be joining a team whose utmost priority is maintaining a solid backline, with the consequent effect being that the Bianconerri rarely score too many goals, rather scoring a goal or two and shutting up shop at the back.
To put this into perspective, despite the fact that Juventus have won the Serie A title in each of the last three seasons, they were only the third highest goalscorers in the league in 2016 and 2017 with 75 and 77 goals respectively (behind Roma and Napoli), with their goal tally rising to 86 last season. In contrast, Real Madrid scored 110, 106 and 94 goals in the same number of matches over the last three seasons.
Ronaldo is undeniably a prime goalscorer who would find a way to adapt his game to any circumstance. However, the sheer attention placed on Juventus' defensive solidity at the expense of attacking threat means that it would be more difficult for Ronaldo to finish as Serie A highest goalscorer.
#6 Juventus players rarely win the award
Ronaldo also has the weight of history against him, as despite their domestic dominance, no Juventus player has won the Capocannoniere in the last ten years, with club record goalscorer and legend Alessandro Del Piero the last player to win the award with his 21 goals in the 2007/2008 season, and David Trezeguet before him when he jointly won it with Dario Hubner in 2002.
Before David Trezeguet, you have to go back almost 20 years to 1985 when former UEFA President and Ballon d'Or winning midfielder Michel Platini still represented the club to find the last time a Juve player won the Serie A Golden Boot.
In essence, only three Juventus players have won the Italian league Golden Boot in over thirty years, and with that sort of history against him, the odds are stacked against the 33-year-old achieving this feat. However, knowing Ronaldo's propensity for defying the odds, don't bet against him using this as motivation to create history.
#5 He has underperformed in the league in recent seasons
Cristiano Ronaldo has won a total of four domestic and European Golden Boots (second highest behind Messi's record of five). However, none has come since 2015 when he scored a massive 48 La Liga goals.
He scored 26, 25 and 35 goals in each of the last three seasons respectively, and while those are decent enough numbers for most strikers, they pale significantly to the figures he posted in the league earlier in his Real Madrid career.
On the flipside, Portugal's record goalscorer has incredibly finished as the Champions League top scorer in each of the last six seasons (jointly with Messi and Neymar) and set numerous records, including scoring in 11 consecutive matches the last term.
His recent lower performance levels in the league would be a detracting factor in Ronaldo's quest to win a Golden Boot in a third different country and could play a huge role in seeing him miss out on a domestic Golden Boot for the fourth consecutive season.
#4 Juve's dominance of Serie A is likely to see him rested for certain fixtures
The Old Lady of Turin have been so far ahead of the rest of the Serie A that they have won the last seven editions of the Serie A. In addition, they have also lifted the 'double' of both the Serie A and Coppa Italia in each of the last four seasons, as the rest of the league has looked on in helplessness at their dominance.
This superiority means that Juventus are still favourites to retain the Scudetto, even without Ronaldo's presence, and this is a factor which would see the Bianconerri likely rest Ronaldo towards the business end of the season.
Ronaldo was the subject of mild rotation by Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid over the last two La Liga campaigns, failing to make 30 appearances in either, and if he is rested in a similar fashion by Allegri, his goal return in the league is bound to take a hit like it did at Real Madrid.
#3 Juventus and Ronaldo's primary focus would be on the Champions League
For all of Juventus dominance domestically, they have found continental success extremely difficult to come by, and have not lifted Europe's premier club competition since 1997 when they defeated Borussia Dortmund in the final.
In that time, they have been losing finalists on four occasions, including in 2017 where a Ronaldo brace was enough to sink them in a 4-1 defeat at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Indeed, Juventus have first-hand knowledge of Ronaldo's Champions League prowess, as they have been on the receiving end of his scoring boots on no less than 10 occasions, which is the highest he has scored against any team in the competition, including a hattrick at the Juventus stadium in the quarter-final last season which led to Ronaldo receiving a standing ovation at an opposing ground for the first time in his career, and played a role in convincing him to join the club.
Ronaldo has been almost superhuman in the Champions League, and his stats in the competition beggar belief. It is for this reason that Juventus shelled out such a huge amount to get him, and with both the club and his priorities set on conquering Europe, Ronaldo's league performance would undoubtedly be on the back burner.
#2 His strike partner
While Ronaldo's efficiency as the focal point of an attack is not in doubt (his performances in the Portugal national team emphasizes that), what cannot be denied is the role Benzema has played in his goalscoring prowess over the years.
Karim Benzema was signed in the same summer as Ronaldo by Real Madrid, and the Frenchman arrived with a burgeoning reputation as a 21-year-old scoring machine.
However, Cristiano Ronaldo is very much the superior player of the two, and Karim Benzema unselfishly sacrificed his personal gains over the last nine seasons for Cristiano Ronaldo to flourish.
Karim Benzema was the out-and-out striker at Real, but it was not an uncommon scene to see the 31-year-old drift out wide during counters and supply crosses for Ronaldo to finish off. It, therefore, came as no surprise to find that Ronaldo was one of Benzema's fiercest defenders when criticisms of his low goalscoring returns arose.
At Juventus however, the situation is undoubtedly not going to be the same. Ronaldo's arrival has already caused an upheaval in the club's attacking department, with Higuain going out on loan to AC Milan.
Ronaldo is likely to find himself partnered by Croatian international Mario Mandzukic over the course of the season, and this could have an impact on Ronaldo's productivity, as, at 6ft 2in, Mandzukic's physicality means he also plays as a target man in the opposition box.
Signs of their unsuitability arose in the club's 2-0 victory over Lazio, where Mandzukic and Ronaldo continuously went for the same ball, leaving Ronaldo to drift out wide and turn provider.
Ronaldo is undoubtedly the symbol of this Juventus team, possessing a vastly superior skill set to everyone else at the club, and his wages adequately reflect that (his wages make up about 40% of Juve's entire wage bill).
Hence, Massimiliano Allegri is bound to build the team's play around Ronaldo's strengths. However, whether Mandzukic can seamlessly adapt to Ronaldo's playing pattern remains to be seen, and a failure to do so would result in a depleting of Ronaldo's goalscoring returns.
#1 The Messi factor
Over the course of the last nine seasons, football fans witnessed one of the most epic rivalries not just in sporting terms, but across any other field anywhere in the world.
Ronaldo arrived at Real Madrid in 2009, in direct competition with Lionel Messi at Barcelona, and what transpired over the next nine seasons was absolutely the stuff of legend.
The fact that the two greatest players of their generation played for the two biggest clubs in the same league at the same time was absolutely beautiful, and football as a whole benefited from this.
The two are significantly ahead of the peers when it comes to performance levels, and they engaged in a two-way battle to determine who the better player is, constantly upping the ante, and trying to outdo the other.
Both Messi and Ronaldo have admitted that their competition with one another motivated them, as neither wanted to be left behind the other in the decision of the individual awards.
With Ronaldo's departure from La Liga, some source of motivation must have left him, as, despite his legendary self-motivation, his competition with Messi always pushed him to go that extra edge.
With all due respect to the Serie A players, but none of them is anywhere near the level of Messi, hence there is no one in the league to push him to break his limits.
With the absence of Messi as a direct rival, and a reduction in motivation, the drive for Ronaldo to go all out for goals in Serie A is bound to take a hit and would affect his quest to become Serie A Golden Boot winner negatively.
