Cristiano Ronaldo has added yet another astonishing goal-scoring record to his remarkable collection of statistics after netting against Juventus in the Champions League.
Ronaldo scored at the Bernabeu against the Italian champions in the second leg of their quarter-final on Wednesday night, in the most dramatic of circumstances.
It was the Portuguese hitman’s 15th goal in the 2017-18 competition – the third-highest goal tally for an individual player in a season.
The top two seasons are held, unsurprisingly, by Ronaldo, for two of his other phenomenal European seasons for Real.
He scored 16 goals in the 2015-16 season, when Real won the competition, eventually beating local rivals Atletico Madrid on penalties in the final.
This is surpassed only by the remarkable 17 goals he scored in the 2013-14 season – where again Real were champions after defeating Atletico in the Lisbon showpiece.
With the possibility of at least three more games in this season’s competition, should Real reach the final again, Ronaldo could set yet another scoring record.
Even at 33, Ronaldo continues to bang in the goals at an extraordinary rate, with 41 in 38 matches already this campaign.
He has scored at least once in every Champions League match this season, and in every game he has played in all competitions since February 10.
Few goals he has ever scored have been more dramatic than this, however – a 97th-minute penalty to pull the aggregate score against Juventus back to 4-3 in Real’s favour.
Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon had been sent off after angrily confronting referee Michael Oliver for giving a foul against defender Mehdi Benatia.
Ronaldo let none of this distract him as he planted the ball past replacement Wojciech Szczesny into the top corner and send the Bernabeu wild.
Champions League Top scorers
Includes Champions League and European Cup. Season in brackets.
17 – Cristiano Ronaldo (2013-14)
16 – Cristiano Ronaldo (2015-16)
15 – Cristiano Ronaldo (2017-18)
14 – Jose Altafini (1962-63), Lionel Messi (2011-12)
