Cristiano Ronaldo reached the landmark of 30 goals this Serie A season during Juventus’ 2-1 victory over Lazio on Monday. Only two players had ever reached the 30-goal milestone in Italy’s top division since 1960 — Luca Toni and Gonzalo Higuaín — but, remarkably, Monday’s match saw both Ronaldo and Lazio's Ciro Immobile hit that mark.
Ronaldo scored goal number 29 from the spot (his 12th successful penalty of the campaign) before adding number 30 after Paulo Dybala set him up for a tap-in.
Cristiano Ronaldo with two goals in two minutes, Juventus lead 2-0 and are on their way to the Serie A title pic.twitter.com/qzgYjPPGWN
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) July 20, 2020
Immobile then cut the deficit to 2-1 after converting his own spot kick. As well as directly competing for Serie A’s coveted Capocannoniere award, Immobile has also now converted 12 penalties. Ronaldo and Immobile both lead that category in Europe’s top five leagues — Lecce’s Marco Mancosu trails them with eight. There are a lot of penalties in Serie A.
While the highlights aren’t great, the stats — oh, the stats — truly are.
Ronaldo is now the first player in history to score 50+ career goals in each of Serie A, LaLiga and the Premier League. He’s also now the fastest player to score 50 goals in Serie A. It took Ronaldo only 61 games to achieve that feat, bettering Andriy Shevchenko’s previous record by seven matches.
Who doesn't like those big round numbers?