Cristiano Ronaldo has performed Champions League soccer at some stage of the competitors throughout every season of his senior profession, a exceptional feat that started in 2002 when he first performed for Sporting CP in a qualification at simply 17 years previous.
Since becoming a member of Manchester United 18 in 2003, Ronaldo has performed in at the very least the Champions League group stage yearly. As well as, there has solely been one event throughout all that point that he has not reached the knockout levels.
Ronaldo has performed within the Champions League each season for nearly 20 years Ross Kinnaird / Getty Photographs
Ronaldo has change into synonymous with the Champions League through the years. His 5 titles are a document for a single participant within the interval after 1992, after successful it as soon as with Manchester United and 4 instances with Actual Madrid. He’s only a shy of the record-breaking European Cup document held by Paco Gento, who received intercourse with Los Blancos within the Fifties and into the Nineteen Sixties.
It was really within the Champions League that Ronaldo made his senior debut in skilled soccer, and appeared as a alternative for Sporting CP in a 3rd qualifying spherical in opposition to Inter in August 2002.
The 17-year-old winger from Madeira, who had left his island dwelling to be a part of the membership’s youth ranks 5 years earlier in 1997, performed simply over half an hour of a 0-0 attract Lisbon. Ronaldo was not noted of the return match in Milan and Inter received 2-0 to advance, though he performed in each legs in a comforting UEFA Cup match in opposition to Partizan Belgrade subsequent month, which Sporting additionally misplaced.
It’s the solely time in a glittering profession that Ronaldo has ever performed in Europe’s second division and he has been completely a Champions League participant since then.
Sporting Lisbon says the membership’s academy will likely be renamed “Academia Cristiano Ronaldo” as a tribute to “the best participant ever”?
Ronaldo joined Sporting’s academy on the age of 12 earlier than transferring to Man United in 2003. pic.twitter.com/M7GXgL4QiF
– ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) September 21, 2020
After enjoying in a qualification for Sporting, an 18-year-old Ronaldo made his group stage debut after transferring to England in 2003 and performed a full 90 minutes of a stunning loss to Stuttgart. It was Ronaldo who received the penalty for United’s comfort purpose within the 2-1 defeat that evening.
He performed 5 instances within the Champions League that season, made additional begins in opposition to Rangers and Panathinaikos and got here off the bench in each legs in his 16s in opposition to Porto.
Ronaldo grew to become an more and more essential participant for United in the next seasons as he started to each bodily mature and fine-tune his approach. He began frequently within the 2004/05 Champions League marketing campaign, though United’s shock group elimination in 2005/06 is the one time since his sporting days that he has been a part of a crew that was knocked out earlier than Christmas.
Ronaldo is now the Champions League prime scorer of all time with over 130 targets within the competitors, but it surely was not till April 2007 that he received his first. He had been ready for the reason that first strike with Sporting in 2002 after which did twice in a well-known 7-1 United thrashing of Roma.
Ronaldo scored his first Champions League purpose in 2007 | Alex Livesey / Getty Photographs
The participant continued to win his first Champions League title in 2008 when United beat Chelsea in an in depth last – Ronaldo really missed his penalty within the penalty shootout after scoring in regular time. He performed one other last in 2009, earlier than a world document switch of £ 80 million to Actual Madrid.
Ronaldo helped make Actual a pressure in Europe once more. Earlier than his arrival, Los Blancos had been launched within the 16s for 5 seasons in a row. There was one other last 16-out 2009/10 with Ronaldo on board, however Actual then reached at the very least the Champions League semi-finals for the following eight seasons and lifted the trophy on 4 events throughout that point.
Ronaldo has remained a Champions League ever current since being transferred to Juventus in 2018, though he has not had the extent of success he did earlier than.
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