Cristiano Ronaldo at 35: 5 of the Portuguese legend's highest-scoring calendar years
This week marks Cristiano Ronaldo’s 35th birthday, and the great Portuguese forward shows no sign of slowing down when it comes to goalscoring; 2020 is just a handful of weeks old and yet CR7 has already struck 9 goals for Juventus in just 5 games, averaging a goal every 50 minutes.
Could 2020 turn out to be one of Ronaldo’s most fruitful years to date? Perhaps – only time will tell – but if it is to be, he’ll have to continue his current red-hot form and not really slow down, as his best years saw him score an insane amount of goals.
Here are Cristiano Ronaldo’s highest-scoring calendar years to date.
#5: 2011 – 48 goals in 44 games
2011 saw Ronaldo turn 26 years old, and during that year, he was in the midst of two of his earlier seasons at Real Madrid. The Portuguese opened his account with a brace against Getafe on the 3rd day of 2011, and didn’t slow down from there. By the end of March, he’d already scored 10 league goals, including a pair of hat-tricks.
Two more hat-tricks in the league followed before the end of the 2010-11 season, as well as 5 goals in other competitions, giving Ronaldo a total of 28 in the calendar year before the start of 2011-12. The Portuguese then scored in Real’s second game of that season – in the Supercopa de Espana - and went onto score a hat-trick in the very first league game.
The goals continued to flow – including 3 in the Champions League’s group stage – and Ronaldo finished the calendar year with a total of 48 goals in 44 games, giving him an average of a goal every 77 minutes.