Cristiano Ronaldo broke the all-time free-kick goalscoring record in the UEFA Champions League last night when he scored from a dead ball against his former club, Sporting Lisbon, to make it 1-1.
The Portuguese captain has now scored an incredible 12 goals from free-kicks breaking the previous record held by Alessandro del Piero who had 11. Ronaldo's goal against the Portuguese giants sparked a comeback in the game where Alvaro Morata scored the winner deep in stoppage time.
Ronaldo's free-kick for Real Madrid's first goal was inch-perfect. The power, the placement and the technique were all spot on. Rui Patricio couldn't do anything to prevent the ball from going in. The 31-year-old paid his respect to his former club by not celebrating once the ball was in the back of the net.
However, Ronaldo's record from a dead ball situation – barring penalties – is quite poor. Last season alone, he missed scoring from a whopping 50 dead-ball chances. And ever since the beginning of the 2009 / 2010 season, he's only managed to score 12 goals from said opportunities outlining his dip in an area for which he once touted the 'best in the world'.
It all didn't matter against Sporting, though, as the 31-year-old ensured he got it all right. Ronaldo has the knack of always scoring against his former clubs. He scored against Sporting while he was at Manchester United and he scored three times against the latter team even as early as the 2013 quarter-finals.
Last night, Real Madrid went down to a Bruno Cesar goal early in the second half and couldn't find a way back into the game until the Portuguese captain was given the aforementioned opportunity.
That soon followed by a lovely headed goal from Alvaro Morata – who connected sweetly to a James Rodriguez cross – and sealed three points for the Los Blancos who will be looking to top the table that also includes Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw.
