Cristiano Ronaldo has proven to be more than a regular footballer as he has taken care of his body well enough that he is still playing at the highest level at 39 years old.
But stats at Euro 2024 show that Cristiano Ronaldo can not cheat age forever as the natural phenomenon has fully caught up with him. This was so obvious in Portugal’s quarter-final clash with France on Friday, July 5.
From the start of the game to the finish, the former Real Madrid player was nowhere to be found. He was completely disconnected from the rest of the team.
Despite his obvious out-of-touch with the game, coach Roberto Martínez decided to keep him on the pitch for the entire duration of the match including 30 minutes of extra time. Hence, it was as if the Portuguese side played against France with a man down.
At the end of the day, France knocked out Portugal from the tournament via a penalty shootout in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored the team’s opening spot-kick.
Stats Show Cristiano Ronaldo is done with International football
Cristiano Ronaldo is arguably the best player of all time especially in terms of scoring important goals. He has scored a record 895 senior career goals. He is the all-time highest goalscorer in international football (130 goals).
But he has proven that he has done his best in international football based on his performance in Euro 2024. For the first time in his illustrious football career, Ronaldo didn’t score a single goal in a major tournament despite playing five straight games in Euro 2024.
Note that the Euro 2024 is Ronaldo’s 11 major tournaments in his international career.
The only two goals Ronaldo scored in Euro 2024 were the two penalty goals he converted during the shootout which are not counted for players beyond the shootout.
To make his goalscoring stats worse, the Al Nassr striker has not scored from an open play since the group stage of the 2021 European Championship.
In the Euro 2024, Ronaldo had more shots [23] than any other player but failed to score any of them. Due to his poor accuracy in the tournament, he had 0.692 expected goals across all the games he played.
With these stats, it is obvious that Cristiano Ronaldo who helped Portugal to win one European Championship and one Nations League has given his best to the national team and has nothing more to give. He should respectively bow out and give the next generation of Portuguese footballers the chance to prove themselves in his position.
