Cristiano Ronaldo Scores Again. Cristiano Ronaldo was on the score-sheet as European champions Portugal beat Israel 4-0 on Wednesday in their final warm-up for the defence of their title.
Manchester United star Bruno Fernandes bagged twice as Ronaldo and Joao Cancelo added for a comfortable win in Lisbon.
Ronaldo’s 44th minute strike was his 104th international goal in 175 matches, and leaves him five short of the record held by Iran’s Ali Daei.
Portugal are in the tricky looking Group F at the Euros with Hungary their first opponent on June 15 before they take on Germany four days later and then the reigning World Cup holders France June 23.
Ronaldo surpassed Pelé’s mark for most goals in official games, and he is within seven of Iran striker Ali Daei’s men’s international scoring record of 109 goals.
Goal-scoring records are always slightly spurious. Pelé, at least, seems to have accepted that Ronaldo has now surpassed him in official games, but such things are always at least to an extent arbitrary.
Across eras, across countries, what should count is never entirely clear. A lot of Pelé’s greatest performances came on extremely testing tours of Europe with Santos, but those games are classified as friendlies and so don’t register.
But then which friendlies do you begin to consider? The case of Josef Bican, who has scored more goals than Ronaldo, although not necessarily in official games, is even more complex.
International goals are a little easier to assess, given everybody seems to accept that goals scored in tournaments, in qualifiers and in friendlies should all be tallied.
Of course, some players play a lot more than others, partly because some countries play more games than others, and partly because a good player in a weaker footballing country would tend to have a longer career than a player of similar ability playing for a nation that produces large numbers of elite players.