Could Cristiano Ronaldo become the all-time Saudi Pro League top scorer?

Cristiano Ronaldo moved up to ninth place in the list of leading Saudi Pro League goalscorers on Friday night as his two goals against Al Hilal helped Al Nassr win the Riyadh derby.

The double strike took Ronaldo onto 70 goals in the Saudi top-flight, a total reached in just 72 matches; it means the Portugal superstar has scored – on average – once every 89 minutes since arriving in the Kingdom in January 2023.

Ronaldo’s statistics are remarkable but could the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star become the all-time leading Saudi Pro League goalscorer? Al Arabiya English examines the players ahead of Ronaldo in the top 10 who he is now aiming to overtake.

Statistics are taken from the Saudi Pro League’s official website and refer to goals scored since the 2011-12 season.

9) Cristiano Ronaldo (Al Nassr) – 70

Cristiano Ronaldo’s brace against Al Hilal moved him level with Cameroonian striker Leandre Tawamba on 70 Saudi Pro League goals, though the Al Nassr No. 7’s superior strike rate sees him placed ahead of the forward, who is currently playing in the Saudi First Division for Al Tai. Ronaldo has been irrepressible since joining Al Nassr; he won the 2023-24 Pro League Golden Boot in his first full season and is on course to retain that crown in 2024-25 – currently leading the rankings on 21 goals so far.

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If Ronaldo kept up his current strike rate he could become the all-time leading Saudi Pro League goalscorer – but it would take him at least two more seasons to reach the milestone and it remains to be seen if the Al Nassr captain will be tempted to continue playing in the Kingdom up to the age of 42. Ronaldo currently doesn’t hold any all-time scoring records for the leagues in which he has played in but is second on La Liga’s historic list. His 311 goals in 292 games are beaten only by Lionel Messi’s 470 in 520, though Ronaldo does have a superior goals-to-game ratio of 1.07 to Messi’s 0.91

8) Salem al-Dawsari (Al Hilal) – 72

Next on Ronaldo’s radar will be the prospect of passing 72 goals – a total shared by two players. The first of those is Al Hilal’s much-vaunted captain Salem al-Dawsari. Making his Pro League debut for Al Hilal way back in the 2011-12 campaign, al-Dawsari’s influence has grown substantially over the years. With 18 goal contributions so far in 2024-25 – seven goals and 11 assists – he is on course to beat last season’s career-best total of 20. Al-Dawsari, whose association with Al Hilal stretches back two decades, is the only player on the list who isn’t a natural center-forward – making his presence even more impressive.

7) Odion Ighalo (Al Shabab, Al Hilal and Al Wehda) – 72

Ahead of al-Dawsari thanks to a better goals-to-games ratio, Odion Ighalo has shown excellent consistency in front of goal since moving to the Saudi Pro League from Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua in 2021. Ighalo, like Ronaldo, is a former Manchester United player – though his time at Old Trafford was not particularly successful in terms of goals. In the Kingdom, however, Ighalo has enjoyed several fruitful seasons, winning the Saudi Pro League Golden Boot in 2021-22 as Al Hilal won the title and making it into the division’s Team of the Year in both 2022 and 2023.

6) Romarinho (Al Ittihad) – 76

Over six prolific years at Al Ittihad, popular Brazilian forward Romarinho plundered 76 goals in 172 games. His most prolific season for Ittihad was in 2021-22, when he finished second behind Odion Ighalo in the race to win the Saudi Pro League Golden Boot with 20 goals. Romarinho, a Copa Libertadores winner with Brazilian giant Corinthians in 2012, also made the Saudi Pro League Team of the Year when Ittihad won the title in 2022-23. The goals dried up a little for Romarinho in a difficult 2023-24 campaign for Al Ittihad but he showed in 2024-25 that he had not lost his scoring touch, netting 10 goals in 18 games for Saudi First Division side NEOM before a January switch to Qatar’s Al Rayyan.

5) Bafetimbi Gomis (Al Hilal) – 81

Former France international Bafetimbi Gomis averaged a goal every 101 minutes for Al Hilal over his four seasons in Riyadh. Gomis enjoyed a glittering spell at Al Hilal, winning two AFC Champions Leagues, two Saudi Pro League titles, the King’s Cup and the Saudi Super Cup. The ex-Marseille and Galatasaray marksman was Saudi Pro League top scorer in 2020-21 as Al Hilal won the title and he also helped the club retain the trophy a year later, as well as winning the AFC Champions League Golden Boot in 2019.

4) Nasser al-Shamrani (Al Wehda, Al Shabab, Al Hilal) – 88

On lists that include life before the 2011-12 Saudi Pro League season, Nasser al-Shamrani finds himself second in terms of the Kingdom’s all-time leading scorer behind legendary national team striker Majed Abdullah. Al-Shamrani bagged 167 goals in 301 games for Al Wehda, Al Shabab and Al Hilal but straddled two eras of Saudi football. In the Kingdom’s post-2011 records, al-Shamrani’s total of 88 league goals is only enough for fifth place on the Saudi Pro League’s official scoring charts.

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Still, al-Shamrani is an undeniable league legend, notably winning two Saudi Pro League titles with Al Shabab. The second of those was achieved in 2014 and al-Shamrani was the division’s top scorer with a career-high single-season total of 21 goals helping al Shabab win its sixth – and most recent – championship in 2011-12. He hit the same total for Al Hilal two years later. Al-Shamrani won the Saudi Pro League Golden Boot on five occasions (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2014) and was named AFC Asian Footballer of the Year in 2014.

3) Mohammed al-Sahlawi (Al Nassr, Al Shabab, Al Taawoun, Al Hazm) – 89

Only aforementioned Green Falcons icon Abdullah has scored more goals for Al Nassr than Mohammed al-Sahlawi, who netted 131 in all competitions over a remarkable decade in Riyadh. Although he never won the top division’s Golden Boot, al-Sahlawi’s goals helped Al Nassr win three Saudi Pro League titles in 2014, 2015 and 2019 – with the Saudi striker named the Kingdom’s Player of the Year after each of the first two triumphs. Many wish al-Sahlawi had played more than the 42 games he managed for the Saudi national team, particularly as he scored 28 goals in that time – but he remains a legend of club football in the Kingdom nonetheless.

2) Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al Nassr, Al Ittihad, Al Shabab) – 147

While catching the other names on this list might be achievable for Ronaldo, the gap to the top two players might be beyond the 40-year-old forward. The man currently in second place is Abderrazak Hamdallah. Wherever the Moroccan striker goes, goals follow. Hamdallah has spent the past six seasons in Saudi Arabia and his scoring record has been nothing short of sensational. Only Ronaldo has a better goals-to-games ratio, with Hamdallah averaging a goal every 91 minutes – just two fewer than Ronaldo.

He is a three-time Saudi Pro League Golden Boot winner – in 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2022-23 – and his goals secured league titles for Al Nassr in 2019 and Al Ittihad in 2023. Although last season was one of Hamdallah’s toughest, after he was replaced in the Al Ittihad starting line-up by Karim Benzema, the Moroccan still managed to hit 19 goals in 24 games – more than his renowned French team-mate.

The goals have also continued in the current campaign with Al Shabab; Hamdallah is only three goals behind Ronaldo in the race for the 2024-25 Golden Boot despite playing for a mid-table team in Al Shabab. Hamdallah has broken record after record in the Kingdom and is the fastest player to score 50 and 100 goals in the Saudi Pro League, the top scorer (7) in the history over the Saudi Super Cup and all-time leading scorer in the King’s Cup.

1) Omar al-Somah (Al Ahli, Al Orobah) – 150

The first player to reach 150 goals in the modern Saudi Pro League was Omar al-Somah, who achieved the feat in March when he scored for Al Orobah against Al Khaleej. Syria international al-Somah returned to the Kingdom in January with Al Orobah after two years in Qatar with Al Arabi. Had he not had that hiatus, he would likely be even further ahead of Hamdallah at the top of the goalscoring rankings.

Al-Somah starred for Al Ahli for almost a decade, helping the Jeddah heavyweight win the Saudi Pro League title in 2015-16 – the club’s first in 32 years. The striker won the Golden Boot that season with 27 goals – the second of three in a row between 2014 and 2016. Now 36 years old, al-Somah is two years Hamdallah’s senior and it therefore seems likely that he may soon be overtaken by his Moroccan rival.

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