A stunning double on the part of Cristiano Ronaldo this evening saw the Juventus superstar reach a remarkable international goalscoring milestone, as he continues to close on the all-time record.
Sweden downed
Ronaldo’s Portugal returned to Nations League action a short time ago, in a meeting with Sweden.
Fernando Santos’ men got their Group campaign off to the perfect start over the weekend, with a 4-1 downing of Croatia.
Making their victory even more impressive, meanwhile, was the fact that it came with captain and leader Ronaldo having missed out through injury.
The 35-year-old returned to action this evening, though, and to say that he made his impact felt would be putting it lightly.
Ronaldo notched both of his side’s goals versus Sweden, as Portugal ran out 2-0 winners.
The first came courtesy of a wonderful free-kick:
UNBELIEVABLE!
Cristiano Ronaldo scores international goal No. 100 in epic fashion 💫 pic.twitter.com/KJuFNj7ld8
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 8, 2020
His 2nd, a little over 15 minutes from time, was also typically classy:
Cristiano Ronaldo is putting on a show!
He follows up international goal No. 100 with another stunner 🤩 @ESPNFC pic.twitter.com/S1o82BTNnu
— ESPN (@espn) September 8, 2020
Cristiano climbing
As outlined above, though, Ronaldo’s brace did not just prove significant on a collective level for Portugal, but also on an individual level for the attacker himself.
In netting his first versus Sweden, Ronaldo took his international goalscoring tally to 100, making the former Real Madrid man the first European player to ever reach the century mark for his country:
165 games. 100 goals.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the first man in history to reach a century for a European country in international football. 🐐 pic.twitter.com/Md3K5BjGzU
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) September 8, 2020
The veteran’s 2nd, meanwhile, took him to within 8 goals of the all-time leading international goalscorer, Ali Daei, who found the back of the net 109 times for Iran.
