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Has Ronaldo Really Become 'penaldo'? Superstar's Stats After Six Seasons At Both - Sports - Nairaland

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Has Ronaldo Really Become 'penaldo'? Superstar's Stats After Six Seasons At Both by sojihandsome: 2:08pm On May 23, 2015
July 6, 2009, and 80,000 had just invaded the Bernabeu to spend their Monday afternoon watching Cristiano Ronaldo do keepie-uppies on a stage.

It beat the 55,000 that attended Kaka's unveiling at the same venue just six days before, and the 75,000 that welcomed Diego Maradona to Napoli from Barcelona in 1984.

Legends such as Eusebio and Alfredo di Stefano lining up to meet Ronaldo, photographers scrambling on top of one another, classical music with a dash of heavy metal blasting from the speakers, 50-odd supporters invading the stage; it was hysteria, and just the beginning.

Ronaldo's six-year association with Manchester United ended with this unveiling.

'This is my new home. To me, this is a dream come true,' Ronaldo announced after Real Madrid's club president Florentino Perez had warmed up the audience for the headline act. He had been presented to the world, and was handed the No 9 jersey once worn by the great Di Stefano.

Ronaldo completes his sixth season in La Liga tonight – as many as he played in the Barclays Premier League – but how does his career with one compare to the other?

Ronaldo's 118 goals in Manchester before his 310 in Madrid show how he has mastered his art. He was signed as a Galactico and remained one, refusing to give up until he wins – or at least scores.

But losing the popularity contest to Lionel Messi inevitably brings the critics out of the woodwork.

Break his goals down by when they go in – whether in the first quarter-hour, the second, the third, and so on – and the 30-year-old's fitness becomes apparent.

Let's face it, there's never a good time to try to stop a three-time Ballon d'Or winner. Yet, unfortunately for defenders, there is a worse.

Even if you survive until the 75th minute, you're not done. The forward is most lethal from the 76th onward, both from his six seasons in Manchester and Madrid.

At Old Trafford, he scored more goals (28) in the final quarter-hour of a match than in any other period. Likewise at the Bernabeu (64).

Getting closer to being a 30-something was no hindrance and still isn't – a lesson Espanyol learned last week, like so many before them, when he scored in the 83rd and 90th minutes.

Yet Ronaldo is more than just a goalscorer – he has turned into a provider, too.

He made just 34 assists in his six years at United but has 65 at Real, with his 16 this season blitzing his previous totals.

Questions were being asked pre-2009 whether Ronaldo was an expert of the dead ball, too.

His 30-yard free-kick against Portsmouth in 2008, for example, gave David James no chance, and introduced a new technique to hit the ball, which Gareth Bale and others have adapted.

Yet at Madrid this is a black mark on his CV.

His ratio for scoring from free-kicks this season is just 3.1 per cent, having taken 32 and scoring just one. Last year, it was 10 per cent. The year before, 8.2. And before that, 3.6.

So, how exactly does he score his goals?

Starting with his 118 in Manchester – 19 with his left foot (16.1 per cent), 77 with his right (65.3), 21 with his head (17.cool, and one with his chest.

The dampener is that he has lifted fewer trophies at one than the other.

Ronaldo won nine in England, including three Barclays Premier League titles, the FA Cup and the Champions League. Yet, in the same time frame in Spain, he has just seven honours, despite the Madrid club having racked up a £500.6m transfer total since 2009. Messi, by comparison, has 14.

It is that statistic which is enough to cause Ronaldo to pull one of his infamous sulks. He wants to be a winner, but his CV states he won more at his former club than his current.

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