Cristiano Ronaldo in an international match. On 13 November, Ronaldo scored two goals (while also missing a penalty) in another qualifier against Latvia, which ended in a 4–1 home victory. These goals brought his international tally to 68 goals, putting level with Gerd Müller and Robbie Keane as the fourth-highest European international goalscorer of all-time. He played his first professional match on his home island of Madeira on 28 March 2017 at age 32, opening a 2–3 friendly defeat to Sweden at the Estádio dos Barreiros. With the goal, he tied with Miroslav Klose on 71 goals as the third-highest scoring European
Cristiano Ronaldo Year and FWA Footballer of the Year awards for the second consecutive season. As rumours circulated of Ronaldo's interest in moving to Real Madrid, United filed a tampering complaint with governing body FIFA over Madrid's alleged pursuit of their player, but they declined to take action. FIFA president Sepp Blatter asserted that the player should be allowed to leave his club, describing the situation as "modern slavery". Despite Ronaldo publicly agreeing with Blatter, he remained at United for another year. Ahead of the 2008–09 season, on 7 July, he underwent ankle surgery, which kept him out of action for 10