This treble was his 37th hat-trick for the Spanish outfit and in turn he became the first player to net three hat-tricks in one UEFA Champions League season.
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Cristiano Ronaldo single-handedly carried the Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals with a hat-trick, defeating Wolfsburg 3-0 on Tuesday.
After falling two goals behind against Wolfsburg in the 1st leg of their quarter final tie in Germany, Real Madrid were in need of a hero to step up and rescue their season on home soil. “The fans were incredible”.Wolfsburg steadied the ship after that but the bitter blow for them came when Ronaldo added his third with a free-kick through the German wall in the 77th minute. He is my coach now and I get along with him very well. It’s not bad is it?
“Goals are in my DNA and I just want to keep scoring them for the team”, Ronaldo said after the game.
The 31-year-old has 16 goals in the Champions League this season, one short of his competition record of 17 which he set when Madrid were champions two years ago.
The Portuguese striker scored twice in the first half before netting a freekick 13 minutes from time to see his side into the last 4. However, the three-time World Player of the Year had still received criticism earlier in the campaign for not performing in Real’s biggest games as Barcelona rival Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or to crown the world’s best player in January.
With questions turning to his own performance, he was more modest than normal saying it wasn’t the best performance he’s ever put in, and he knew he could be better, but what counted was he was clinical and got the goals we needed so he’d take that.
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But despite his side being on course to seal a memorable win, Zidane was clearly still feeling the pressure as the game approached its end which was exemplified by his passionate reaction to Real missing a chance to score in the 80th minute. But also I think in the style of play that we never change, maybe a lot of people thought that tonight because we drew in Paris that we’ll try to speculate and play for a draw 0-0 here. Laurent Blanc deployed an ambitious 3-4-3 with goals a necessity, but an attack usually so prolific found themselves thwarted not so much by top-class defending as by a determination on City’s part that they were not going to allow this hard-won advantage to slip.
