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The Portugal captain has bagged 102 international goals but has yet to find the net against England, Italy, Germany and France in 14 attempts.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s international career is the very definition of shining. The Portugal captain led his country to its first major tournament victory at the 2016 European Championship and has the inaugural Nations League title to his name, as well as a World Cup semi-final and a medal of Euro 2004 runner-up. The Juventus forward has also scored 102 international goals in 168 appearances, placing him second on the all-time list behind Ali Daei, whose record of 109 for Iran is unlikely to last much longer with the Ronaldo’s goal rate for Portugal only increasing with age.
However, there is a blank column on Ronaldo’s track record and it refers to some of the traditional European heavyweight nations: England, Italy, France and Germany.
In 14 games against those teams, Ronaldo has not been able to find the net. The same goes for Brazil, but given the regularity with which UEFA teams clash, it remains on Ronaldo’s to-do list to get off the mark against four of the five European teams that have lifted the World Cup.
Ronaldo makes a point from the point
Since his debut in 2003, Ronaldo has faced France six times. and Les Bleus have managed to completely exclude the prolific Portuguese, most recently when Didier Deschamps’ side eliminated this season’s reigning Nations League champions. On the biggest stage, at the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo was overshadowed by Zinedine Zidane in the semi-finals.. In five subsequent matches, the Portuguese was denied a goal and Éder contributed the winner in the final of Euro 2016 and the injured captain memorably offered tactical advice from the wing.
Ronaldo’s first game against England was in 2004 and he would go blank again in a Eurocup rematch later that year, although he did score from the spot in the successful shootout. Two years later, in the famous “Rooney wink” quarter-finals of the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo would bury the decisive penalty to accompany Portugal until that meeting with France and Zidane.
Gianluigi Buffon was immovable in the two friendlies that Portugal and Italy have played with Ronaldo on the pitch in 2004 and 2008 and Germany have also kept the goal machine at bay in three meetings between the nations.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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