How Many Goals Is Cristiano Ronaldo Worth To Juventus?

Update 6/08/2019

Last season was transitional for Ronaldo, having left Real Madrid for Juventus following nine successful seasons with the Merengues. This season will be transitional for his club, as Massimiliano Allegri is replaced by Maurizio Sarri after five seasons with the Serie A champions.

Unlike when Allegri took over from Conte, Sarri is expected to change Juve’s playing style a lot. He has a history of turning his clubs and players into goal-scoring machines, with Napoli netting a record of 94 league goals in 2016-17, and both Gonzalo Higuian and Dries Marten having their best seasons under the new Juve coach. These are sort of stats that are sure to excite Ronaldo, a player who is known for breaking goal-scoring records himself.

Aside from Sarri’s management style, it will be interesting to see how the two personalities match. Both have had locker-room issues in the past, Ronaldo with Mourinho, and more recently, Sarri with Hazard, but if things go as well as we expect them to go on the pitch - there will surely be less to worry about off it.

So could this be the start of a winning partnership for Juventus? Sarri’s attacking philosophy seems to be the perfect match for the Portuguese talisman, but we won’t have to wait much longer to know for sure.

There’s just over 2 weeks until the start of 2019/20 Serie A campaign, a campaign which will be under scrutiny from the moment the first whistle is blown. Can Ronaldo and Sarri finally end Juve’s agonising wait for European glory, whilst maintaining domestic success, or are we set for an underwhelming season in Turin? Only time will tell.

Update 31/05/2019

Following their astonishing victory over Atletico Madrid and qualification to the next stage of the tournament, La Vecchia Signora faced Ajax in the Champions League quarter-finals.

Despite Ronaldo's goals in Amsterdam and Turin, Erik ten Hag’s Class of 2018 managed to advance to the semi-finals, killing Juventus’ Champion League dreams for yet another season and making it 22 years since the club has won a European title.

Following their exit, fans began to wonder whether Juventus had made a mistake in spending €100m for Ronaldo, a player who appeared to be past his prime. However, a closer look at the numbers shows that this probably isn’t the case.

For a start, Ronaldo scored in both games against Ajax, and with his hat-trick against Atletico Madrid, he was the leading figure in Juve’s triumph - and without him, it’s highly likely that they would have been knocked out earlier.

We should also take into account that Serie A soccer, and Juve’s style of play, is totally different to Real Madrid’s - resulting in significant less goals scored. Last season, Juventus scored 76 goals in the Champions League and Serie A combined while Real Madrid netted 118.

One reason for this was the fact that Real Madrid played three more games than Juve because they reached the Champions League final, which they eventually went on to win, while Juventus were knocked out in the quarter finals by the Merengues, ironically by a penalty kick from none other than Ronaldo.

This season, however, Real Madrid have scored 30 less goals, whilst Juve have scored 8 more goals in Serie A and Champions League combined - with Ronaldo accounting for 28 out of the 84. Compared to his last season in Madrid, where he scored 44 goals in 44 appearances - his performance at Juve does look poor.

But as his past shows, Ronaldo’s first season at a new club is always his poorest. During his first season with Manchester United he scored 6 goals in 40 appearances, whilst his best was 42 goals in 49 appearances. Likewise, during his first season in Real Madrid he scored 33 goals in 35 appearances, whilst his best was 61 in 54 appearances.

Does that mean that he next season he will score more goals? The numbers certainly seem to point towards that outcome. He might be 34 years old but his physique is closer to a 25 years old and his hunger for glory seems infinite.

It would be an oversimplification to claim that the increase in Juve’s numbers and the drop in Real Madrid’s is an immediate effect of Ronaldo’s move last summer. However, it would be naive to claim that it had nothing to do with it. Whether Ronaldo is worth €100m, though, is a very different question.

In a universe where Ousama Dembele costs €105m, and Neymar €222m, it doesn’t sound unreasonable to pay less for a one of the fittest and most professional players worldwide with five FIFA Ballon d’Or awards to his name.

Update 14/03/19

Wow, what a UCL second leg that was. And in response to the question raised at the title, Ronaldo seems to be worth quite a lot of goals - and important ones at that.

In case anyone missed it, Juventus last night claimed their spot in the last 8 of the Champion’s League with a 3-0 victory over Atletico Madrid (3-2 on aggregate). All three goals came from Ronaldo, in a night he described as ‘magical’:

"It was meant to be a special night and it was, not just for my goals but for the attitude we showed," the 34-year-old said. "That is the sort of mentality you need to win the Champions League.[...] This was why Juventus brought me here. To help do things that they have never done before."

Two of the goals came from Ronaldo’s trademark powerful headers, using his pace and positioning to beat his markers to the cross on both occasions. The third goal came in the latter stages of the game, as Angel Correa pushed Bernardeschi in the box and Ronaldo converted the resulting penalty in resounding fashion to complete his hat trick.

As the man himself said, this is why Juventus paid top dollar to bring Ronaldo into the fold. It’s not only his proven ability to create moments of magic, but the way he can lift the team around him, inspiring others to up their game and match his incredible work rate.

You’d think that as one of the most scrutinised players in the world he’d be prone to buckling under the immense weight on his shoulders, but he seems to thrive under pressure, often putting in his best performances when the team’s back is against the wall.

We are looking forward to seeing what flashes of brilliance the Portuguese powerhouse will bring to the next stage as we wait for the draw (Friday, March 15th at 11am UTC).

Update 11/03/19

With Juventus at a crossroads in the UEFA Champions, Cristiano Ronaldo has a pretty massive mission in a match that can see the Italian team - who lost 2-0 in the first leg - say goodbye to the tournament.

The face-off between Juventus and Atletico Madrid is set to take place on the March 12th 2019 at 20h UTC, and it will likely determine Ronaldo's worth in the eyes of Juve's fans.

Original post

However you choose to measure it, Cristiano Ronaldo is undoubtedly one of the greatest soccer players the world has ever seen. Even so, eyebrows were raised when Juventus splashed out an incredible amount of money to sign the 33 year old from Real Madrid. In total, the cost of the transfer plus the player’s salary and taxes is said to be costing the Italian champions an eye-watering €340 million.

It’s a simply stunning outlay, and the reason for it seems clear: Juventus want to win the Champions League. The Old Lady has had few troubles in Serie A in recent times, winning the last seven titles in a row and amassing 95 points in 2017/18, which was the second most in their history. They also scored 86 league goals, which was their best tally since 1959/60.

How do Juventus compare to Europe's elite

But their record at Europe’s top table is surprisingly modest. Juventus have won the European Cup or Champions League just twice, which puts them on par with the likes of Benfica, Porto and Nottingham Forest, and behind both Internazionale (with three continental titles) and Milan (with seven) in the Italian rankings.

In Ronaldo, Juventus have signed the Champions League’s premier goal scorer.

The last season where the Portuguese forward wasn’t the competition’s joint-top or outright top scorer was 2011/12, and he is comfortably the leading all-time goal getter with 120 in total.

Indeed, Ronaldo scored home and away to knock Juventus out of the competition in 2017/18, and he scored against them twice in the final the season before. Juventus haven’t just bought a top player, they also appear to have removed their nemesis from a rival.

The arrival of Real Madrid’s record scorer in Turin has seen Gonzalo Higuain move to Milan on loan. Is it possible to quantify the difference the new striker will make when compared to his predecessor? It’s difficult to get a concrete answer, but we can certainly try.

The difference between Ronaldo and Higuain

For starters, their goal-per-game rates were markedly different, with Ronaldo scoring almost twice as many for Real as Higuain managed for Juventus. Cristiano netted 1.03 goals per appearance for the current European Champions, and 1.07 for every 90 minutes he spent on the pitch.

By contrast, Juve’s Argentinian striker bagged 0.52 goals per appearance, or 0.59 per 90 minutes. Take these figures at face value, and it would seem Ronaldo will be approximately worth an extra goal every two matches when compared to the man he has replaced. Here's a table of his complete league stats taken from Understat.com:

But it’s worth noting Higuain has played for Real Madrid too, and when he did his goal scoring figures were more impressive, as he found the net 0.69 times per 90 minutes. It’s still a fair way behind Ronaldo’s record, but it points to a fact which is hugely important here.

Goals are scored more frequently in Spain than they are in Italy.

However, the gap isn’t as wide as you might assume. Despite Serie A’s reputation for tight, defensive soccer, the Italian top flight has seen 2.73 goals per game across the last four seasons, while La Liga matches have averaged just 0.03 more in the same period.

It’s interesting to look at the expected goal data for the two leagues, which can be obtained via the Understat website. Since the summer of 2014, the average Serie A game has featured 2.60 expected goals, whereas in Spain it has been 2.66 per game. The gap between the two countries is greater on the underlying stats than in actual goals, but what does that actually tell us?

The difference between the two figures means that four percent more goals have been scored in reality than the underlying data would suggest in Spain, but in Italy that difference is five percent. There isn’t much between the leagues, but the numbers suggest it is slightly easier to score in Italy, at least when compared to expectations from the chances available, even if there are more goals in Spain overall.

It looks like Juventus have signed the right player

This difference is even more apparent when looking at Ronaldo’s former and new clubs. Real Madrid have outperformed their expected goal tally by 16 percent over the last four seasons, but that figure is 24 percent for Juventus.

Perhaps the most pertinent gap between the two players is on their underlying statistics. Although Ronaldo’s non-penalty shots were only worth 0.01 expected goals more than Higuain’s on average, the fact he shoots far more often makes an enormous difference.

At Real Madrid in 2017/18, Juve’s new man averaged 7.0 shots per 90 minutes, with 5.5 of them being taken from inside the box. For Higuain those figures were 3.3 and 2.2 respectively, and so Ronaldo was recording over double the amount of non-penalty expected goals.

In short, Ronaldo had more chances and they were of better quality, and he has now moved to a league where it appears it is easier to score and especially for the very top team. Based on that, he should easily score more than Higuain did last year, and he should be looking to get close to 30 Serie A goals.

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