20 years have passed since his first EURO appearance and immediately winning runner-up with the Portuguese team. Cristiano Ronaldo will be the most notable name this summer in Germany, but can he do it? What can you get at the age of 39?

This will be the sixth time Ronaldo attends EURO with Portugal, the team continues to rely on the greatest player the country has ever produced, holding the record for number of goals and number of caps for the team. the most countries.

Ronaldo was in the starting lineup for 9/10 EURO 2024 qualifying matches and scored 10 goals, second only to Bruno Fernandes and Ruben Dias in terms of minutes played in the lineup.

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He also scored two goals in the recent friendly match with the Republic of Ireland, including a super goal, reaching the mark of 129 goals for the Portuguese team.

“We do not select players based on the championship in which he is playing” – coach Roberto Martinez answered when asked why Ronaldo is still a pillar in the team despite his retirement. leaving the highest level playing fields.

The 39-year-old star has no longer been the focus of the media since he left Manchester United after an argument in November 2022 and then moved to Saudi Arabia with Al Nassr in January 2023.

Ronaldo remains one of the most famous athletes on the planet – and the top earner according to Forbes Magazine’s 2024 rankings – but few football fans watch him play every week in the Saudi Pro League .

His numbers there remain outstanding: 50 goals in all competitions for Al Nassr in the 2023/24 season and 35 goals in the league alone, enough to make him the first player in history winning the title of “Top scorer” in four different countries.

But how good will the version of Ronaldo playing in Germany really be? Let’s take a closer look. Details of Ronaldo’s achievements in Saudi Arabia last season need to be considered in the right context.

According to Opta’s latest rankings, the Saudi Pro League is the 27th strongest league in the world – ranked just below South Korea’s K League 1 and above the Israeli national championship.

Al Hilal, the 2023/24 Saudi Pro League champion with an unbeaten record, is the 39th ranked club in the world, according to Opta. They finished with a 14-point gap over second-placed Al Nassr, ranked 88th in the world.

The third-placed team in the league, Al Taawoun, are 300th on Opta’s list, so it is not surprising that the top two teams in the league scored 101 and 100 goals respectively in 34 matches of the season. recent tournament.

Saudi Pro League clubs are only allowed to register a total of eight foreign players during the season and the majority of the stars purchased mainly play as midfielders and strikers.

Except for Kalidou Koulibaly at Al Hilal, the best defender to come to Saudi Arabia in the past year is Aymeric Laporte, Ronaldo’s teammate at Al Nassr.

Of course, this information does not reduce the value of the extraordinary achievements that Ronaldo has accomplished at the age of approximately 40.

But we must honestly admit that he was successful in a tournament where the level of defense is far behind the top European national championships, where Ronaldo’s main opponents in this EURO are. competition.

One of the keys to Ronaldo becoming one of the top scorers in football history is his extremely high finishing density.
Cristiano Ronaldo (right) in the match between Portugal and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the EURO 2024 qualifier at Luz Stadium in Lisbon (Portugal), June 17, 2023. (Photo: THX/TTXVN)
In the Saudi Pro League, he has averaged 6.2 shots per match in the 2023/24 season according to Fbref.com statistics, a rate as high as his last three seasons at Real Madrid and three seasons playing. for Juventus.

By comparison, Darwin Nunez and Kylian Mbappe lead the scoring list in major European competitions with an average of 4.7 shots per match in the 2023/24 season.

Ronaldo’s greatness comes from his ability to squeeze at an extremely high level on a large number of opportunities.

He never makes a mistake on the penalty spot – he has scored 13 goals from 13 penalty attempts since arriving in the Saudi Pro League, including eight successful penalties last season, with the remaining 27 goals being scored from live ball situations.

In the Portuguese team shirt, Ronaldo is still maintaining incredible persistence: He launched 46 shots in the qualifying campaign, hitting the ball 19 times and scoring 10 goals. Ronaldo is only behind Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, who has scored 14 goals.

Although his body may not be as strong as it once was, Ronaldo’s mind is still as sharp as ever in the backfield and his desire to score has not diminished with age.

Extremely strong nerves on the penalty spot prove that Ronaldo’s spirit has never been affected by external circumstances.