What records can Ronaldo break at Juventus?
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
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What would it take for Cristiano Ronaldo to become a goalscoring immortal in Serie A? He's signed a four-year deal.
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Following his switch from Real Madrid to Juventus, Cristiano Ronaldo is starting again from scratch in a new league – but records are doubtless on his mind, the 33-year-old having left the Merengues as their all-time top scorer with 450 goals.
Here is our bucket list of targets he can size up in Italy, beginning with the easiest and working towards the truly inconceivable. However, with Ronaldo, nothing is impossible.
Most goals in a single Italian top-flight season: 36 – Gino Rossetti (Torino 1928/29), Gonzalo Higuaín (Napoli, 2015/16)
Most goals in a single Juventus season: 35 – Ferenc Hirzer (1925/26)
It took 87 years for Gonzalo Higuaín to match Gino Rossetti's top-flight record of 36 Serie A goals, but this is a record Ronaldo can aim to break in his first term in Turin. He has not scored over 30 league goals for a couple of campaigns, yet he made it to 40 three times during his reign in Spain: 40 in 2010/11, 46 in 2011/12 and an incredible 48 in 2014/15.
Oldest player to score five goals in a single Serie A match: 34yrs 330 days – Miroslav Klose (Lazio, 2012/13)
German ace Miroslav Klose hit five of Lazio's goals in a 6-0 demolition of Bologna on 5 May 2013 when he was approaching his 35th birthday. Ronaldo's first chance to take this record off the former Werder Bremen and Bayern man will come on 2 January 2020. He has twice bagged five in a Liga game: v Elche on 21 September 2014 and v Espanyol on 12 September 2015.
Oldest top scorer in a Serie A season: Luca Toni (38yrs 5 days – Luca Toni, Verona, 2014/15)
The 2014/15 campaign ended on 31 May, five days after Luca Toni's birthday, the 38-year-old having finished the season level on 22 goals with Inter Milan's Mauro Icardi. Ronaldo should get his first shot at this record in 2023/24. It's not as far off as you think!
Oldest player to score a hat-trick in a Serie A match: 37yrs 51 days – Silvio Piola (Novara)
Most hat-tricks scored in Serie A: 17 = Gunnar Nordahl (AC Milan, AS Roma), Giuseppe Meazza (Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus, Varese, Atalanta)
Ronaldo can tilt at Silvio Piola's oldest hat-trick scorer record if he is still playing after 28 March 2022, by which stage he may have come some way towards stealing the record of 17 hat-tricks shared by Serie A greats Gunnar Nordahl and Giuseppe Meazza. After all, Ronaldo claimed a stunning 34 trebles in his nine seasons in Spain – an average of just under four a season.
Top Juventus scorer in UEFA club competition: 51 – Alessandro Del Piero
Alessandro Del Piero's Juve records include some that Ronaldo has no chance of breaking – for instance, 27 goals for Italy while with the Old Lady – yet eclipsing his UEFA club competition record is not necessarily the stuff of science fiction for a marksman of Ronaldo's class. He has scored 51 for Madrid since November 2014; could he reach the same tally for Juventus by 2023?
Most Serie A goals: 274 – Silvio Piola (Pro Vercelli, Lazio, Torino, Juventus, Novara)
Most Juventus goals: 288 – Alessandro Del Piero
Silvio Piola needed from 1929–54 to net his epochal total; Ronaldo comfortably exceeded that haul in his last eight seasons at the Bernabéu. Sure, the Portuguese would have to keep scoring at a similar rate – and play well into his 40s – in order to make the record his own, but with Ronaldo, you never know. If he is still performing come 2025/26, he may be closing in on something amazing.