Ronaldo scored his 500th goal as a professional player Wednesday in Real Madrid’s UEFA Champions League visit to Malmo.
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The 30-year-old added a second late on with a simple finish after he was teed up by substitute Lucas Vazquez to help Real win 2-0, reports BBC.
After drawing a blank on three successive occasions, Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo finally pulled goals for himself as he struck a brace to equalise the club’s all-time record of 323 goals held by Raul. “I thank my teammates for the confidence they have given me”, said Ronaldo. “He [helped] us win many games so everything I will say about him would be good things”.
After a hat-trick in Real Madrid’s opening Champions League win over Shakhtar Donetsk two weeks ago, last season’s joint top scorer with 10 goals has now already hit the mark five times in this season’s competition.
The Real Madrid man brought up the big 500 with a first half strike against Swedish side Malmo in the European Champions League – in his 753rd career game.
He then reacted tetchily to questions about why he has largely refused to talk to the media in recent months and quashed suggestions he might leave Real in the short term, possibly to return to former club Manchester United. But if Raul was watching the match hoping Ronaldo would wait until the next La Liga fixture to tie his record, he’d be sorely disappointed.
Raul is arguably the most emblematic number seven in Real Madrid’s history, but with Ronaldo’s scoring achievements continuing and no sign of him losing force, he may soon become number one in the eyes of fans.
“He has surpassed Raul, who was a phenomenon and that shows that he has scored a lot of goals”, said Madrid coach Rafael Benitez.
“I am very happy that the team won, we kept a clean sheet, that we took three points and Christiano Ronaldo scored two goals and broke a record”.
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Exactly six years to the day since the two clubs last met at Old Trafford, the Group B game followed the same pattern with Wolfsburg taking the lead and United winning.
