Rewind six weeks, and in Madrid, inside the bowels of the Santiago Bernabeu at half time, Cristiano Ronaldo must have taken his seat inside the Real Madrid changing room and felt at ease. He had just scored two crucial goals for his club side which left them in a strong position to qualify for the Champions League final. Just a few days previous, he had silenced and vanquished his demons at the Camp Nou, scoring a sumptuous and significant winning goal against Barcelona to all but secure the La Liga title. Ronaldo was performing in the biggest of games and proving claims he was a big game flop completely wrong. And then it all went horribly wrong; first, Ronaldo missed his penalty in the subsequent shoot-out, his third penalty miss in the latter stages of the Champions League, and Madrid were sent crashing out. Ronaldo escaped castigation, as Ricardo Kaka went on to miss that night and Sergio Ramos cleared the crossbar. After all, Ronaldo’s heroics couldn’t keep coming forever, he’d done his bit.

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