RON REIGNS SUPREME
MAGICAL RONALDO LIFTS JUVE
Juventus had last won the Champions League title in 1995-96. Since then, they have reached the final five times but in vain. Desperate to reclaim European glory, the Italian champions bought Ronaldo from Real Madrid for €100 million.
And on Tuesday night, Ronaldo proved his worth by scoring from two clinical headers and then slotting in the winning penalty to script a brilliant comeback. It was only the fourth time under Massimiliano Allegri that Juventus managed to score thrice in a Champions League tie at home. tion on front of the Spanish fans.
After scoring the decisive penalty four minutes from time, he turned towards the Atletico fans and replicated Simeone’s gesture after the Spaniards’ 2-0 first leg win by grasping his genitals and thrusting out his groin.
“He will have seen how I did it
MAN FOR THE MOMENT
Despite a mammoth task at hand, Ronaldo knew exactly what was required. Besides constantly motivating the players and the crowd, Ronaldo could often be seen leaping the highest in the box to meet a cross, shrugging off opposition defenders at will.
The hat-trick was not a surprise either. Pressure has often brought the best out of Ronaldo on Champions League nights. The treble reminded fans of a similar effort from him had helped his former club Real Madrid go past Wolfsburg in the 2016 quarter-final tie after they were 0-2 down after the first leg. at the Wanda Metropolitano and, like me, was trying to show his character,” said Simeone, who was fined 20,000 euros ($22,000) by UEFA for his gesture. “Cristiano Ronaldo is the best in the world.”
Defensive specialists Atletico held off the Juventus pressure until the 27th minute, when
RONALDO IMPACT ON STOCK MARKET
Juventus’ shares soared by over 20 per cent on the Milan stock exchange on Wednesday, the morning after Cristiano Ronaldo's hat-trick helped Juventus stay alive in the Champions League campaign. The club's shares jumped by 23 per cent after the Milan stock exchange opened before dipping to 17.09 per cent later.
Ronaldo has netted in the Champions League so far — the highest
hat-tricks Ronaldo has scored in the Champions League so far Ronaldo met a pin-point Bernardeschi cross to score the opener.
After the break Ronaldo levelled the tie with his second goal with a move he began from his own half with a pass to Leonardo Spinazzola down the left. The ball was worked to Joao Cancelo, who crossed into the penalty area for
ATLETICO’S DEFENSIVE TACTICS BACKFIRE
Diego Simeone’s Atletico packed the defence hoping to shut out Ronaldo as they did in the first leg in Madrid. But they perhaps sat too deep to hold on to the 2-0 lead. Simeone’s side did not have a single shot on target in the 90 minutes.
The Serie A side bombarded the Atletico area with crosses, and a tactical switch that saw Federico Bernardeschi move to the left added more potency to their attack, which resulted in their first goal. And once Ronaldo equalised the tie on aggregate minutes into the second half, chances of an Atletico comeback looked extremely unlikely. Ronaldo, whose powerful header was pushed out by Oblak but not before it had crossed over the line. Teenager Moise Kean missed a chance to put Juve ahead just after coming off the bench, sending wide with only the goalkeeper to beat.
But the decisive goal came
IN NUMBERS
of instances since 2005-06 until Tuesday when Juve went to the next stage of a Champions League knockout tie having lost the first leg.
number of teams, including Atletico, have now failed to progress to the next round despite having a 2-0 lead in the first leg of a knockout tie.
players have represented Juventus in 500 matches across all competitions. Giorgio Chiellini became the latest to join the elite club that includes Alessandro del Piero, Gianluigi Buffon, Gaetano Scirea and Giuseppe Furino. with four minutes left when Bernardeschi burst into the penalty area f rom t he l ef t and was brought down by Angel Correa.
Ronaldo made no mistake from the spot to score his 25th goal against Atletico, and fourth hat-trick, to spark pandemonium among the home crowd.