Cristiano Ronaldo is five goals away from overtaking Raul as Real Madrid's all-time leading scorer... and Portuguese can set a new record that may never be broken
- Cristiano Ronaldo scored five goals against Espanyol last weekend
- The Portuguese is now the club's all time top scorer in the league
- Ronaldo is now just five behind Raul's tally of 323 in all competitions
- Real Madrid take on Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League this week Cristiano Ronaldo hit five goals at the weekend to become Real Madrid's top scorer in the league
After
scoring five at the weekend Cristiano Ronaldo will begin his Champions
League campaign on Tuesday against Shakhtar Donetsk knowing that just
five more goals will make him the club's all-time leading scorer.
He
broke Raul's league record at the weekend taking his La Liga tally to
230 goals in 203 games (Raul scored 228 goals in 550 games). The next
milestone is the big one – the one that takes in all competitions with
Raul's 323 the number to beat.
On
318 Ronaldo is within touching distance and again the difference in
goals-per-games ratio is scandalous. Ronaldo is on more than a goal a
game while it took Raul 741 matches to reach his final total.
Ronaldo appears to be enjoying an improved relationship with Gareth Bale this season
It
escaped no-one's attention in the Saturday demolition of Espanyol that
of Ronaldo's five goals, three were scored in centre-forward territory.
The days of Ronaldo tearing in from the left touchline and shooting from
distance are disappearing. He still starts on the left but his ability
to arrive in the area and convert crosses is what now stands out.
'You
don't go past people anymore,' is what Real Madrid president Florentino
Perez is understood to have teased him with in one exchange last
spring. Versions differ on how well he took the comment, ranging from
'with a smile' to 'upset and straight on the phone to his agent Jorge
Mendes'.
The
president may have said something his superstar did not like hearing
but Perez was right and even Mendes was talking up Ronaldo's incredible
capacity to to be the man that finishes the move with one lethal touch,
especially with his head, in radio interviews last season. He suggested
Ronaldo would 'still be scoring 30 goals a season with his head when
he's 39'. And there is every chance the reinvention will prolong his No 1
client's career.
Ronaldo is now just five goals away from becoming Real Madrid's all-time top goalscorer
Ronaldo prepares to Real Madrid's first Champions League clash of the season against Shakhtar Donetsk
Real
Madrid know Shakhtar Donetsk will provide far stiffer opposition than
Espanyol who were more victims than rivals in the weekend drubbing but
there were still serious conclusions to be drawn from the game.
Ronaldo's
finishing continues to amaze in as much as he rarely misses chances. He
had six clear-cut opportunities on Saturday and five of them ended up
in the back of the net.
It
is also clear that the relationship between himself and Bale is
improving after bottoming out towards the end of last season when the
Portuguese refused to celebrate several of Bale's goals, preferring
instead to rue the fact that he had not scored himself.
Two
of Ronaldo's goals in open play against Espanyol came from Bale
crosses. 'We are working hard at it both on the pitch and the training
ground,' said the Wales international of the BBC front three (Bale,
Benzema, Cristiano) that seemed to lose its way last season in the
shadow of the Messi, Suarez, Neymar trio at Barcelona.
Raul's record as the club's top scorer looks set to be overtaken within the next few weeks
Raul spent 16 years with the Real Madrid senior team, scoring 323 goals in all competitions
This
year Rafa Benitez has encouraged more movement from his front three,
Benzema starts centrally with Bale behind him and Ronaldo to the left.
But Benzema has been encouraged to drop out to the right allowing
Ronaldo to make runs into the centre wtih Bale able to occupy the space
Ronaldo has freed-up down the left. The movement is such that Bale still
managed to pop up on the right to provide his second assist for Ronaldo
on Saturday.
Last
season Bale was restricted to a wide left role and he made little
secret of how happy he is to have been freed from those shackles after
the game when he told Sportsmail:
'I feel like I am more involved this year now. The first year you are
running off adrenaline from having just signed. But in the second year I
felt a little bit left out wide and not getting so much of the ball but
now I feel involved in the play and I think that is showing in the
games that I am able to assist goals and score goals.'
The
fear in the Ronaldo camp at the start of season was that by giving
greater freedom to Bale, certain licence would have to be taken from
Ronaldo, but that was certainly not the case on Saturday when he netted
five in one game for the first time in his career.
Five
more and he writes his name at the top of the list of the club's
goal-scorers. And with a total that will keep on growing, it is hard to
imagine it will ever be broken.
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