Real Madrid did not hesitate to honor their all-time legend Cristiano Ronaldo when he became the first footballer to score 900 career goals on September 04. Firing on all pistons in the Spanish capital, Ronaldo’s goal riot had a huge role in Madrid, winning four UEFA Champions League titles in five years. He scored 450 goals for Los Blancos in just 438 appearances. However, a former Madridista doesn’t see CR7 scoring 902 goals as a huge milestone. Rather, he mocked the 39-year-old for always hunting for goals.

Former Real Madrid and Italy star Antonio Cassano thinks of Cristiano Ronaldo as just a goal machine. According to him, many identical players like Ronaldo play better ball than him. “Ronaldo can even score 3,000 goals but doesn’t know how to play football,” said Cassano, as compiled by Abola PT. Diving deeper into his outlandish claim, Cassano hinted Ronaldo is infamous for selfishly prioritizing his personal goal tally.

“Higuain, Lewandowski, Benzema, Aguero, Ibrahimovic, Suarez… they know how to play team football but Cristiano… what is your goal? Goal, goal, goal, goal,” Cassano added. But it must be noted that Ronaldo isn’t often the epitome of selfishness as he’s portrayed. He created 131 assists for Real Madrid. Besides, though CR7 failed to score in the recent UEFA Euro, he set up Bruno Fernandes in a group game to become the competition’s all-time assist leader.

Cassano’s attack on Ronaldo, however, isn’t a big surprise. The former Roma and Madrid forward has historically been one of the Al Nassr star’s biggest naysayers.

When Cassano demanded that Cristiano Ronaldo should immediately retire

2022 has been a rough year for Cristiano Ronaldo. He was on the bench for Portugal’s crucial games at the FIFA World Cup and eventually saw his team humble out in the quarter-final against Morrocco. His second coming to Manchester United completely went south afterward. Manager Erik ten Hag rarely started the Portuguese skipper and the latter eventually fell out with the boss and the club. At this point, Antonio Cassano thought it was high time that Ronaldo had retired.

“A player like Cristiano needs to consider his own situation, and if he can’t perform anymore, then it’s time to step away. It’s a standard in all sports – just retire, it’s enough,” Cassano said two years back.

However, Ronaldo couldn’t care less about criticism of sorts. He left European football to join Al Nassr and helped start a transfer market revolution in the Saudi League. And had he retired in the face of minor setbacks in 2022, he couldn’t have scored 902 goals. And now he seems determined for 1,000.

Even then, naysayers will do their job. But it will do little to topple Ronaldo’s position at the top of soccer’s scoring leaders.