While Cristiano Ronaldo is predominantly known for his goalscoring abilities, he’s racked up an impressive number of assists throughout his career too.
During his nine-year spell with Real Madrid, CR7 produced a total of 120 assists which places him seventh in the all-time rankings for assists at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Using Opta’s criteria for assists, here are the six Real Madrid players with more assists for the club than Ronaldo.
6. Juanito – 122 assists
Real Madrid fans still chant the name of Juanito to this day and for good reason.
The former Spanish international spent 10 years at the club from 1977 to 1987 and he won 10 trophies in that time, including five league titles.
5. Ferenc Puskas – 132 assists
Widely recognised as one of the greatest forwards of all time, Puskas is one of the most complete strikers in the beautiful game’s history.
Along with ranking fifth in Real Madrid’s all-time assists chart, Puskas also ranks as the club’s sixth-highest-scoring player of all time with 242 goals to his name.
Throughout his Real Madrid career, the Hungarian international averaged 1.43 goal contributions per game which is absolutely outrageous.
For context, Ronaldo averaged 1.3 goals and assists per game during his time in Spain.
4. Alfredo Di Stefano – 139 assists
Considered by some as Real Madrid’s greatest player of all time, it should come as no surprise that Di Stefano makes the cut for this list.
The legendary forward spent 11 years at Real Madrid and racked up 447 goal contributions in that time, with 139 of them being assists.
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3. Karim Benzema – 149 assists
Benzema is the only player of the modern generation who has outdone Ronaldo with assists in a Real Madrid shirt.
While strikers are usually renowned for their selfishness, that was never the case with Benzema who was often happy to take a backseat to accommodate the likes of Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
However, that’s not to say that Benzema didn’t score his fair share of goals over the years too. The Frenchman scored a total of 354 goals for the club which ranks him second in the all-time standings.
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2. Paco Gento – 166 assists
The diminutive forward reaped havoc on La Liga defences from 1953 to 1971 during his mammoth 18-year spell with Real Madrid.
Gento is one of only eight players who have made 600 or more appearances for Real Madrid and he certainly enjoyed plenty of success with the club back in his heyday.
He won a total of 23 trophies during his time in Madrid and produced an impressive 166 assists throughout that period.
1. Michel – 197 assists
Up until this point, no player has been able to match Michel’s record of 197 assists for Real Madrid. Even CR7 finished his Real Madrid career being 77 assists short of the record.
The former Spanish international, who has since gone into football management, spent 12 full seasons with Real Madrid and averaged 16 assists per campaign.
His record of 197 assists is going to take some beating.
