Cristiano Ronaldo just won the 'Fifa Best' award yesterday after scoring his least number of goals in a La Liga season i.e. one worse than his debut season with 'just' 25 goals, made his lowest no. of appearances in a La Liga season at just 29 matches, had just two goals in the champions league uptill the quaterfinals, & despite that he was the undisputed best of the 2016-17 season.
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With Zinedine Zidane resting the Portugese legend on quite a few occations at the tail end of last season, he was in prime condition for the 'Big Matches', & boy oh boy did he performed in those matches. He was an absolute monster in the latter stages of the Champions League scoring a mind boggling, record breaking, & unparalleled 10 goals in the knockout rounds of the greatest club football competition. Man did he turn up for matches against Atletico, Bayern, & Juventus.
It all started against the mighty Bayern at the Alianz Arena where the most played Champions League fixture was again being played & everyone expected the 'Master' Carlo Ancelotti to get one over his 'Pupil' Zinedine Zidane, but Madridstas had another plan & if it was not for a mind blowing performance by Bayern's Neuer it would have been atleast another hat-trick from Cristiano, who had to settle for a brace in Germany. In any case Cristiano didn't have to wait much longer for his hat-trick as it was duly served in the next leg at The Bernabeu amid controversy (not as much over his goals but over referee's performance). However you look at it five goals against the best goalkeeper in the world are a very very big deal.
Then came the noisy Madrid neighbors who were duly torn apart at The Bernabeu by CR7 by getting another hat trick Here talk was about the heart break that Atletico have had to suffer at the hands of Madrid getting beaten by the Madridstas in all of the previous three seasons of the competitions by the narrowest of margins, everybody was expecting a close match given the great defence that Simeone's side boast. Having not read the script Cristiano came & Cristiano conquered with a powerful header, a thunderous volley, & a fox in the box moment. In the reurn leg Atleti threatened to do the unthinkable & mount a comeback but that was stoped in its track by a genius Karim Benzema moment that is worth watching a thousand times on its own(You can check it out at the end of this post).
In the final again the story was being written from the 'Always a bridesmaid never a bride' Juventus's prespective and how it was finally their time after losing in the 2015 final against Barca. Everyone was too bust gushing over Juve's defence, Gigi Buffon's last remaining trophy, that they had seemed to have forgotten that the other side: Real Madrid had the best & most clutch player of the moment Mr. Cristiano Ronaldo, who started the match like it was just another day at the office by scoring from Carvajal's special assist & getting another after an unexpectedly brilliant goal was scored at the other end by Mandzukic. A brace in the Final against the most iconic goalkeeper of this generation & Juve's record breaking defence was all that was required to ensure that Cristiano will be the one getting all the individual accolades for the season.
In all four of his previous Champions League finals Cristiano had not performed like he did in this one. In the 2016-17 season, he along with Zidane seemed to have realized that it is for the best that he has to take a back seat in some of the smaller matches so that he can come in roaring for the big ones, in previous seasons he would often be exhausted by the time the champions league final came around, after having some epic battles for the pichichi trophy. It finally seems that he has come to an understanding with Zidane that those scoring records are far less important if you can perform as brilliantly as he did in the 'Big Matches' as they are the ones that lead you to awards like the one Cristiano won last night.
Viva Cristiano!
Hala Madrid!
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