Cristiano Ronaldo is the top international goalscorer in men’s soccer history, but a dive into the data shows he scores most of his goals against weaker teams

• Cristiano Ronaldo equaled the record for most career men's international goals during Euro 2020.
• He has now scored 109 goals on the international stage, matching a record set by Iran's Ali Daei.
• Analysis by Insider shows that only 16% of his international goals have come against the world's top 15 teams.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Cristiano Ronaldo is undoubtedly one of the most dominant athletes in soccer history. He's the top overall scorer in professional history in the game, and last week became the joint highest international scorer in the men's game.

With 109 international goals, Ronaldo is tied with Iran's Ali Daei at the top of the men's goalscoring charts, though trails eight female players in terms of goals scored.

While that feat is undoubtedly incredible any way you look at it, delve a little deeper and it seems that while Ronaldo excels against smaller teams in goalscoring terms, he often struggles against the best opposition the world has to offer.

Of the 109 international goals Ronaldo has scored, just 16% have come against sides currently ranked in the FIFA top 15 teams in the world.

Ronaldo has scored a combined 17 goals against the current top 15 teams in the rankings – Belgium, France, Brazil, England, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, Denmark, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Colombia, as well as Ronaldo's Portugal.

He has only managed to score more than two goals against four teams - Belgium, Denmark, Spain and Switzerland - bagging three against each of those sides.

His other five goals against top 15 sides have come against France (2 goals), Germany (1 goal), Argentina (1 goal), and Croatia (1 goal).

He has never scored against England, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Italy, or Colombia. Admittedly, he has never played against Colombia.

By contrast, Ronaldo has scored large chunks of goals against lower-ranked opposition, scoring a combined 42 goals against just eight lowly teams: Faroe Islands, Lithuania, Latvia, Andorra, Luxembourg, Hungary, Estonia, and Armenia.

All of those sides except Hungary are ranked outside the FIFA top 50, with five of the eight outside the top 100.

In total, Ronaldo has scored 32 of his 109 goals (32%) against teams outside the top 100 in the world rankings, 57 (52%) against teams outside the top 50, and 92 (84%) against teams outside the top 15 in the world.

Ronaldo has also scored nine international hat-tricks, one of which came against Spain in the 2018 World Cup and another against Switzerland in the 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals.

He has been most prolific against Lithuania and Sweden, scoring seven goals against both teams during his career.

Ronaldo has more goals than his biggest rivals, but against weaker teams

Lionel Messi, like Ronaldo, is his country's top goalscorer of all time, but a significantly higher amount of the Argentine's goals have come against the best sides in the world.

Of the 75 times Messi has scored in the blue and white of Argentina, 21 of them have come against teams in the top 15, and it is a similar case for Brazil's top scorer, Neymar.

The PSG forward has 67 goals for his country, 19 of which have come against the best teams in the world.

Both those totals equate to around 28% of goals against top 15 sides.

England's top goal scorer Wayne Rooney has also scored 28% of his 53 international goals against the top 15 sides.