RECORD-BREAKING RONALDO FIRES PORTUGAL TO 3-2 WIN OVER GHANA

CRISTIANO Ronaldo stated his club future “does not matter” after a “beautiful moment” which saw him etched his name into the history books as the first man to score in five World Cups during Portugal’s thrilling 3-2 victory over Ghana on Thursday. THE 37-year-old’s thumping penalty put Fernando Santos’s side ahead in the Group H encounter at Stadium 974. Ronaldo’s goal comes on the back of a week when he has dominated the headlines, conducting an interview that sent shockwaves across the world of football due to his immense criticism of Manchester United, with it then announced on Tuesday that a mutual termination of his contract was agreed. “It was a beautiful moment, my fifth World Cup. We won. We started with a good foot, it’s a very important win,” he told a press conference.

Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first man to score at five FIFA World Cups. Here’s a look at how he got there

In playing at his fifth FIFA World Cup, he joined Lothar Matthaus, Antonio Carbajal, Rafa Marquez, Gianluigi Buffon, Andres Guardado, Guillermo Ochoa and Lionel Messi in achieving this distinction. Should CR7, as expected, play in all three of Portugal’s group-stage matches, he will enter the competition’s list of top-ten appearance holders.

But Ronaldo has never been interested in joining a club. He wants to strike out alone as, arguably, the game’s greatest of all time and, as such, 24 November 2022 will remain a momentous date for him.

It is the date on which he became the first and only man to score at five separate editions of the game’s greatest tournament, opening the scoring for Portugal in a thrilling 3-2 win over Ghana. As yet another record falls to the highest-scoring man in the history of international football, FIFA+ looks at his route to World Cup immortality.