Cristiano Ronaldo continues to score for Portugal, comes closer to world record

Cristiano Ronaldo has been in some terrific form lately. On Wednesday, the 35-year old striker scored another international goal and contributed to Portugal's 7-0 scorecard in a friendly against Andorra in Lisbon.

The five-time Ballon d'Or winner has now moved one goal closer to the all-time international goalscoring record in men's football. This marked Ronaldo's 102nd international goal. As it stands, he is now only seven goals away from the world-record of Iran's Ali Dael.

It was debutant Pedro Neto who scored the first goal of the night at the 8th-minute mark. He turned out to be one of five Wolverhampton Wanderers players in the Portugal squad. Also, Neto, who is 20 years old, became the first individual born in the 21st century, to don Portugal colours.

Another debutant, Paulinho, scored twice. Renato Sanchez and Joao Felix scored one each. Sanchez netted the ball for the first time in four years. Andorra's Emili Gracia contributed one for the hosts through an own goal.

Portugal proved too heavy an opponent for the visitors, with a difference of 127 places in the FIFA rankings between both sides. Portugal is currently ranked seventh and Andorra sits on the 134th spot. Portugal's dominance can be traced by the fact that the hosts maintained 84% ball possession.

Andorra rarely got an opportunity to strike and consequently, they never took any shot on target. It was merely a warm-up game for the European champions ahead of the upcoming rounds of the 2020-21 UEFA Nations League.

According to BBC, questions have been raised behind the logic of organising a friendly just before two rounds of Nations League matches. The danger of injury could have caused trouble to the defending champions.

Ronaldo initially started on the bench as a precautionary measure since he had already picked an ankle injury over the weekend against Lazio. However, he replaced Neto at the break and eventually scored for his side from a thumping header.

Portugal will now host France on Saturday in the Nations League, followed by a visit to Croatia on Tuesday. As of now, Ronaldo's side trails Group B leader Ukraine by three points.