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If you just sit down and help yourself to a host of Lionel Messi videos for about a couple of hours, you'll understand the greatness of 2 people. Firstly, and obviously, you'll appreciate the diminutive Argentine and then you'll acknowledge the greatness of Cristiano Ronaldo because providing competition and even outperforming Leo Messi might just be the hardest thing to do in the world of football.
This season, however, Cristiano Ronaldo started off on the wrong foot. He had just four goals to his name in the first half of the season in La Liga. Though he was performing well in the Champions League, he was still being written off in many circles.
However, Ronaldo has stuck to his habit of sticking it to his haters and making them eat their own words. So, let's take a look at 5 times Ronaldo did that this season:
#5 When he exacted revenge on Barcelona and Messi
El Clasico is a sporting spectacle and Messi and Ronaldo have truly elevated it over the past decade or so. Last year, towards the fag end of the season, Barcelona edged past Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu thanks to a late Lionel Messi strike. The Argentinian magician celebrated by removing his shirt and holding it out in front of the Santiago Bernabeu faithful.
How could Ronaldo just leave it be? So when Real Madrid eviscerated Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup at the Camp Nou, Ronaldo scored and returned the favour. He stood in front of the Barcelona fans and proudly held his shirt out so that they could read the name of their tormentor clearly.
It was a moment that Madrid fans were eagerly waiting for. Ronaldo outshining Messi to kick off the season was the perfect start Zinedine Zidane's men could ask for even though things turned ugly afterwards with Ronaldo getting sent off and suspended after pushing the ref for booking him for simulation.
#4 Scoring in all but one of Real Madrid's Champions League matches
Champions are often measured by their ability to show up on the big stage. And Cristiano Ronaldo easily fits into that bracket. In the Champions League, Ronaldo has been nearly unstoppable and has been in great goalscoring form.
Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 119 goals in the Champions League – the most by any player. Lionel Messi comes second with 100. He has been the top scorer in the Champions League for five successive seasons.
Real Madrid has been immensely successful in Europe in recent years and Cristiano Ronaldo has been at the heart of it and the evidence just adds up. He has scored 15 goals in this year's UEFA Champions League from 12 appearances.
#3 Scoring in the Club World Cup final
Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo were going through a rotten period but they made it to the finals of the Club World Cup. Real Madrid were to face Gremio in the final of the tournament.
Ronaldo had been called out for his poor form and people kept saying that his time at the top was up and that he couldn't deliver when the team needed him anymore. He responded to that with a vintage Ronaldo freekick that won the match for the Galacticos.
Cristiano Ronaldo once again proved that there is no big game player quite as good as him and silenced his haters for the umpteenth time.
#2 Scoring 21 goals in 11 appearances after the turn of the year
For the first half of the season, Ronaldo was hardly doing himself any favours by botching wonderful opportunities in front of goal. He was not scoring goals or creating them and was starting to cut a frustrated figure at the centre of the park.
However, things took a turn for the better since the turn of the year and Ronaldo quite simply got back to being on fire! He was unstoppable in the Champions League and all of a sudden, he was replicating that same form in La Liga as well.
Ronaldo scored an astounding 21 goals in 11 games at the beginning of the new year and wound up everyone who ever said anything about him losing his goalscoring prowess. 21 goals in 11 appearances hardly look like the returns of a player who was supposedly playing on borrowed time.
#1 That overhead kick against Juventus
Cristiano Ronaldo is an absolutely incredible athlete and there is no doubting that. The man has kept himself in great shape and at the age of 33, is perhaps even fitter than some of the much younger players.
Ronaldo was already going great guns in the Champions League but this was something that was just ridiculously beautiful to behold. Ronaldo's overhead kick looked so much like a dream that every single soul in the Juventus stadium stood up and applauded the Portuguese forward.
He had already scored in the game and given Real Madrid the advantage in the first leg of the quarter-final tie. It was after this that he plucked a Carvajal cross from mid-air and rose above all else and scored one of the most beautiful overhead kicks we have had the good fortune of witnessing.
Even Gianluigi Buffon was stunned. Zinedine Zidane couldn't believe it at the touchline either. Neither could his teammates. Neither could we. Well, that's just how Cristiano Ronaldo goes about his business, isn't it?
