Cristiano Ronaldo's 10 best goals of the decade 

#9 vs. Spain, June 2018

Ronaldo's free-kick against Spain completed a stunning hat-trick

The match between Spain and Portugal on the opening weekend of the 2018 World Cup in Russia was comfortably the pick of the group stage fixtures, as the two neighbours had won four of the last five major international tournaments between them. So could Ronaldo decide the match? Of course, he could.

In a back-and-forth encounter, a ‘CR7’ penalty gave Portugal the lead, only for Spain to equalise on 24 minutes. A second goal from Ronaldo put Portugal back in front on the brink of half-time, but Spain scored twice in the second half to seemingly wrap the game up. When Portugal were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box with 3 minutes to go, though, the Real Madrid forward stepped up.

Surely he couldn’t pull off another miraculous hat-trick to rescue the game? In the end, he made everyone wonder why they ever doubted him. Ronaldo fired an unstoppable right-footed strike up and over the wall, sending it crashing into the net as Spain keeper David De Gea looked on, incapable of doing a thing.

Ronaldo had scored better free-kicks in his career, but never on a stage like this and under so much pressure. This was a truly brilliant – and miraculous – goal.