Cristiano Ronaldo at Sporting CP: 5 goals in 31 games.

Cristiano Ronaldo's senior career began at Sporting CP and lasted 31 appearances. He scored 5 goals and recorded 6 assists, won nothing, and left after a single season — the shortest and by far the least productive stint of his career at 0.16 goals per game, against the 1.03 he would later manage at Real Madrid.

He made his Primeira Liga debut as a 17-year-old in August 2002. The 5 goals he scored here are 1% of his career club total, which is the lowest share of any of his five clubs and the only one that rounds to a single percentage point.

The stint ended because of a pre-season friendly. On 12 August 2003, Sporting beat Manchester United 3–1, and Alex Ferguson signed him afterwards for £12.24m and gave him the number 7 shirt. Ferguson's own account of the decision was that Ronaldo "has the lot — physical, technical, mental" and was the best young player he ever signed.

It is the only club in Ronaldo's career where the numbers tell you nothing useful about the player. 31 games at 17 and 18 years old, five goals, no trophies — read without the context of what followed, it is an unremarkable record. Read with it, it is the only season of his senior career in which he was not yet the player the rest of this site is about.