The 14 clubs Cristiano Ronaldo never scored against in the Champions League

Cristiano Ronaldo boasts a legendary record in the Champions League. He’s won the competition five times and has scored more goals in the competition’s history than any other player.

The era-defining icon has scored against every Premier League side he came up against on the European stage, as well as filling his boots against continental giants including the likes of Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

But, surprisingly enough, there are 14 clubs that Ronaldo faced and never scored against in the Champions League. We’ve listed them here.

Benfica

Ronaldo made one appearance for Sporting in the Derby de Lisboa as a youngster, a 2-0 defeat away to his boyhood club’s hated city rivals. He then faced the Eagles a further four times after moving to Manchester United.

The two clubs traded 2-1 home wins in 2005-06, in which the Portuguese giants qualified as runners-up to Villarreal and United unthinkably finished bottom of the group.

United got their revenge the following season, once again in the Champions League group stage, with United beating Benfica 1-0 in Lisbon before a 3-1 victory at Old Trafford.

Ronaldo failed to get on the scoresheet but he did notch an assist in each win, for Louis Saha and Ryan Giggs respectively.

Lille

Tied with Benfica as the club that Ronaldo faced the most often in the Champions League without scoring, Lille also came up against the Portuguese superstar home and away in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 campaigns.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s side failed to breach Lille’s backline full stop that first year, drawing 0-0 at home and losing 1-0 away in results that proved costly to their qualification out of the group.

As with Benfica, United got their revenge the following year, eliminating Lille at the Round of 16 stage with a pair of 1-0 wins. Ronaldo sent in the cross for Henrik Larsson’s match-winning header in the second leg.

Celtic

As you might’ve guessed by now, Ronaldo’s early years at United are going to be something of a recurring theme here.

Unthinkably for a player with his record, he didn’t open his account in the Champions League until his 26th appearance in the competition – notching twice in that unforgettable 7-1 quarter-final victory over Roma in April 2007.

Part of that 25-match barren run was a trip to Glasgow, in which Gordon Strachan’s Celtic beat United 1-0 courtesy of a Shunsuke Nakamura free-kick.

Ronaldo once again came up against the Scottish champions in 2008-09, in which he failed to score home and away but was part of a side that won 3-0 at Old Trafford and drew 1-1 at Celtic Park, having assisted Ryan Giggs’ late equaliser.

Napoli

A pair of matches from Ronaldo’s Real Madrid pomp, here.

A rarity at that time, he didn’t get on the scoresheet in Los Blancos’ routine Round of 16 3-1 wins over Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli, but he set up Toni Kroos in the home leg before teeing up Alvaro Morata away.

That was the 2016-17 season, the second of three successive years Madrid lifted the trophy under Zinedine Zidane.

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Legia Warsaw

Another eyebrow-raising entry from the 2016-17 season, Ronaldo played all 180 minutes of Madrid’s group stage clashes with relative minnows Legia but didn’t manage to score while his team-mates managed eight between them – 5-1 at home, 3-3 away.

He did assist Marco Asensio, Gareth Bale and Morata over the course of the two outings, though.

Lokomotiv Moscow

Now we’re onto Juventus. Ronaldo has scored more Champions League goals against the Old Lady – 10 – than any other club, so it made a certain degree of sense that they saw him as the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to going that one step further in Europe.

He notched a respectable 14 goals in 23 Champions League appearances for the Old Lady but was never able to fire them to European glory as he did with Los Blancos.

Among the European clubs he failed to score against for Juventus were Lokomotiv Moscow in the 2019-20 group stage, albeit he did set up an Aaron Ramsey goal over the course of their two 2-1 wins.

Valencia

Ronaldo scored 15 goals in 18 appearances against Valencia during his time at Real Madrid, but he didn’t manage to notch in the 2018-19 Champions League group stage for Valencia.

He only played 29 minutes of the first meeting, his Champions League debut for the Old Lady, having been shown a red card for striking out at Valencia defender Jeison Murillo.

His team-mates went on to win the match 2-0 in his absence at Mestalla. Ronaldo was back for the return fixture in Turin, in which he didn’t score but did set up Mario Mandzukic’s match-winner in a 1-0 win.

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Sparta Prague

The only team in this list that Ronaldo has faced multiple times and neither scored nor assisted against in the Champions League, Ronaldo was still just 19 when he made a late cameo off the bench in Manchester United’s 0-0 draw away to Sparta Prague in October 2004.

He started the return fixture at Old Trafford a fortnight later, but Ruud Van Nistelrooy grabbed all the headlines that night for notching all four in a 4-1 win.

Rangers

Now we’re onto the teams that Ronaldo has faced just once in the Champions League. New to Manchester United, he was left as an unused substitute in a 1-0 group-stage win at Ibrox.

Ferguson entrusted him to start on the left wing in the rematch at Old Trafford, and he completed 90 minutes as front two Diego Forlan and Van Nistelrooy scored one and two respectively in a routine 3-0 win.

Aalborg BK

Ronaldo’s long Champions League goalscoring drought had felt like a distant memory by the time that United faced Danish side Aalborg in September 2008.

He’d burst into life on the European stage the previous season, ending up as the competition’s top scorer with eight goals en route to lifting the Champions League trophy for the first time. A couple of months later he’d get his mits on his first Ballon d’Or.

At that stage in his career, it was starting to be a surprise when Ronaldo didn’t score. Aalborg kept him at bay, but he did assist Dimitar Berbatov for the third goal of a comfortable 3-0 win.

Fenerbahce

The Turkish Super Lig side are the only one of the 14 teams on this list that Ronaldo never beat, scored against or assisted against in the Champions League.

He watched on from bench for Wayne Rooney’s unforgettable hat-trick debut, a 6-2 victory at Old Trafford, but completed 90 minutes in the Instanbul rerun – a 3-0 defeat in which another Barclays-era cult hero, Tuncay Sanli, scored all three goals.

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Dinamo Zagreb

One of Real Madrid’s more humdrum Champions League wins, Ronaldo didn’t get on the scoresheet for a 1-0 away to Dinamo Zagreb in the 2011-12 group stage. Angel Di Maria scored the winner that night, with Marcelo assisting before being dismissed for two bookings.

He was rested for the return fixture at the Bernabeu, watching on from the bench as his Galactico team-mates produced a scintillating 6-2 win.

Panathinaikos

As with Rangers in the 2003-04 group stage, Ronaldo was an unused substitute for a stylish 5-0 home victory over Panathinaikos before being brought into the fold for the return match.

United won 1-0 in Athens, with David Bellion assisting Forlan for the winning goal. Different times.

Stuttgart

One of the stories of last season, Stuttgart finished in 2nd place in the Bundesliga, ahead of Bayern Munich, to book their first Champions League campaign in 14 years.

And it’s almost 21 years since Felix Magath’s Stuttgart – featuring the likes of Philipp Lahm and Alexandr Hleb – beat United 2-1 in the 2003-04 group stage.

An 18-year-old Ronaldo was fouled in the box midway through the second half, with Van Nistelrooy converting the resulting spot-kick, but it only proved to be a consolation in southwest Germany.

Like Fenerbahce, Stuttgart can claim a 100% win percentage over Ronaldo. There aren’t many teams that can boast that.