SANTA MONICA — He may not have a World Cup title yet, but Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the sports most decorated forwards. The star forward added one more title to his collection Wednesday morning during Portugal’s second match of the World Cup. Scoring the game-winning goal in the fourth minute of play, Ronaldo broke the record for the most international goals by a European player, previously held by Ferenc Puskas.
It didn’t take long for Ronaldo to score the game-winning goal for Portugal. In the fourth minute of play, Portugal opted for a short corner kick, dumping the ball off to João Moutinho. Moutinho crossed the ball to the front post where Ronaldo stood ready to head the ball into the top of the undefended net. While the goal was drastically needed for Portugal and propelled it to the top of the group B standings, the goal also marked Ronaldo’s 85th international goal, naming him the Top International Scorer of All-Time in Europe.
The record had stood uncontested since 1956 when Hungarian forward Puskas powered in his 84th international goal. FIFA honored the long-standing record holder by naming its Goal of the Year Award after. Ronaldo, now, only trails Ali Daei’s 109 goal for the Top International Scorer of All-Time (Worldwide). Daei played for Iran from 1993 until retiring in 2006.
Ronaldo has scored four goals in the World Cup thus far and will return to face Iran on Monday. Portugal needs a draw to make against Iran to make it into the knockout round of the World Cup.
