Cristiano Ronaldo is on track to become the first player in football history to score 1000 official goals, but will Erling Haaland reach that tally in fewer matches? We’ve crunched the numbers.
It’s no secret that CR7 has made it his personal mission to score 1000 goals before he retires.
As of writing, the Portuguese superstar has scored 946 goals, meaning that he needs another 54 until he reaches the record landmark.
“People, especially my family, say: ‘It’s time for you to stop. You’ve done everything. Why do you want to score a thousand goals?” Ronaldo told Canal 11.
“But I don’t think so. I think I’m still producing good things, I’m helping my club and the national team, and why not keep going?
“I’m sure that when I finish, I’ll be fulfilled, because I gave it my all. I know I don’t have many more years, but the few I have, I try to enjoy to the fullest.”
Since joining Al-Nassr in 2023, Ronaldo has been averaging a goal scored every 98.8 minutes.
If he manages to maintain that rate of scoring, he’ll need another 5335.2 minutes of football to score the 54 goals he requires. That’s the equivalent of around 60 more games.
As Ronaldo has already racked up 1290 appearances during his career so far, he’ll likely score his 1000th goal around his 1350th appearance.
In comparison, Haaland has scored 322 goals during his career so far, meaning he needs another 678 to reach the 1000 mark. Even for Haaland’s standards, that’s still going to take a vast number of years.
In total, he’s made 383 professional appearances during his career so far, meaning he’s averaged 0.84 goals per game up until this point of his career.
If he’s able to maintain those standards, it would theoretically take him another 807 games to score the remaining 678 goals that he needs to reach 1000.
That means that based on his current rate of scoring, Haaland would score his 1000th career goal in his 1190th appearance.
However, since joining Manchester City, the 25-year-old has become even more prolific, averaging a goal every 93.2 minutes.
If he’s able to maintain those standards, he would only need another 702 games in order to reach the 1000-goal landmark.
Based on either of those scenarios, Haaland would reach 1000 goals in fewer matches than Ronaldo. However, it’s no guarantee that Haaland has another 700+ games in his legs.
If he were to average 50 games per season from now until the end of his career, it would take him at least 14 more seasons at the highest level to play the number of games required to reach 1000 goals.
That means that he will need to remain fit well into his late thirties and avoid any career-ending injuries.
Based on the current data, Haaland looks very capable of scoring 1000 goals before he retires and providing he stays injury-free, it will likely take him fewer games than Ronaldo to do it.
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