The Cristiano Ronaldo of La Liga is a shadow of the Cristiano Ronaldo of the Champions League. He has become the first player to score 18 goals in the Champions League in a calendar year and boy was he on fire tonight!
Though initially tentative, Ronaldo constantly popped up in pockets of space and was involved in 4 of the 6 goals that went in. He scored 2, assisted 1 and set up another.
He is still not at his staggering best and was wasteful with his first few efforts when he kept snatching at chances. But once he put his foot down, Real Madrid started to look like the juggernaut that marauded their way to the Champions League crown last term.
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Ronaldo linked up well with Asensio, Benzema and Kroos on various occasions and carved open an unsettled APOEL defence and had them for dinner.
He will, however, need to prod on in a similar vein and replicate this form in La Liga to push arch-rivals Barcelona to the limits. Fortunately, he looks like he still has a lot to offer.
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About the author
Shambhu Ajith
Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.
For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.
Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.
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