Cristiano Ronaldo broke yet another La Liga record yesterday against Villarreal after scoring a penalty against Villarreal to pull Real Madrid back level. This was his 57th penalty in the colours of Real Madrid, and that broke a record held by another Madrid legend, the Mexican hitman Hugo Sanchez. He had earlier equalled the record with his penalty in a losing cause against Sevilla (1-2 on January 15)
The penalty itself was slightly controversial; with the referee giving a handball against Bruno Soriano in a rather harsh decision. It sparked off a war of words between Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique – and you can read about that here: Gerard Pique rages on twitter again as Real Madrid benefit from controversial decision; and here: Sergio Ramos responds to Pique's claim of bias towards Real Madrid
There is, however, no doubting the excellence of the penalty execution. Ronaldo has perfected the rather harder to master than you think act of scoring from the penalty spot. He has taken 66 penalties to reach this number; having a rather great success rate of 86%. For anyone who doubts that it is a commendable success rate, it may be noted that Hugo Sanchez himself had a success rate of just 73%.
Also, Read – Who has the highest penalty miss percentage in La Liga?
Ronaldo’s arch-rival, and main competitor when it comes to records, Lionel Messi, is a way behind with 43 successful penalties (at a near identical success rate of 84%) and is fifth on the all-time list. In fact, he is another three penalties away from breaking Ronaldo’s record.
Here are the top five penalty strikers of all time in La Liga –
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 57
2. Hugo Sanchez (Real Madrid) – 56
3. Ronald Koeman (Barcelona) – 45
4. Lyuboslav Penev (Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Celta Vigo) – 44
5. Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – 43
