Although he has broken almost every possible record in the world of football, there remains one record that continues to elude Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of the eagerly anticipated clash with Croatia in the second round of the 2026 World Cup.
Ronaldo is back
Ronaldo goes into the match with 10 World Cup goals to his name, having added a brace against Uzbekistan during the group stage, thereby extending his lead at the top of Portugal’s all-time World Cup goalscoring charts.
Ironically, however, all of these goals have come in the group stages, whilst the knockout rounds have proved an insurmountable hurdle for one of the greatest goal scorers in football history.
Since his World Cup debut in 2006, Ronaldo has played seven matches in the knockout stages without scoring or assisting a single goal, emerging from every encounter without any goal-scoring contribution – one of the most curious paradoxes in his otherwise illustrious career.
This run began at Germany 2006 against the Netherlands, England and France, continued at South Africa 2010 with elimination at the hands of Spain, and at Russia 2018 against Uruguay, before he failed to make an attacking impact in the matches against Switzerland and Morocco during the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
Now, nearly two decades after his World Cup debut, the “Madeira Missile” faces a new opportunity to break this historic jinx when he takes on Croatia in Toronto.
This time, the stakes are not only on Portugal reaching the semi-finals, but also on Ronaldo’s ability to write a new chapter in his career by scoring that long-awaited goal and putting an end to what is almost the only negative statistic still haunting him in the world’s biggest international football tournament.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
