Cristiano Ronaldo has just become the first soccer player to score in six World Cup tournaments, this after scoring two goals in Portugal’s 5–0 win over Uzbekistan on June 23, following a quiet start in the 1–1 draw with DR Congo the week before.
Even though criticism is nothing new for the 41-year-old superstar, he admitted the intense negativity he faced during the first week of the World Cup was hard to deal with.
“But it’s always like that,” he told reporters in Portuguese. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been doing this for 23 years. When things go well, it’s ‘Cristiano is good,’ and when they don’t, it’s ‘Cristiano is a retired player, he’s old.’ It will always be like that.”
Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the only players to have appeared in six World Cup tournaments (although goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa seems set to start Mexico's next match and join them in this exclusive club). The difference is Ronaldo had scored in every edition of the tournament from 2006 to 2026, while Messi did not score in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Indeed, Ronaldo has a knack for breaking records. Being one of the greatest athletes of the 21st century, CR7 has an impressively long list of records that deserve to be celebrated.
Ready? Click through and get to know all the records broken by Cristiano Ronaldo (so far).