Cristiano Ronaldo has scored yet another Champions League hat-trick to give Real Madrid a massive 3-0 win over city rivals Atletico Madrid. The Champions League semi-final first leg was played in front of a sellout Santiago Bernabeu crowd and the home team put on a show to show their dominance.
Ronaldo opened up the scoring in the 10th minute with a towering header from close range over Atletico defender Stefan Savic to give Real a 1-0 lead. From here, there was only going to be one winner with Real Madrid dominating the game with 62% possession and always looking threatening with the ball.
A night to forget for Atletico
Atletico Madrid will be hoping to forget this night as soon as possible and look to put in a much more respectable performance in front of their home crowd as they look to bring back a 3 goal deficit. Atletico never looked threatening in the game. They found it very hard to break down Real's defense and only managed one shot on target the whole match.
Atletico boss, Diego Simeone will have to work very hard with his team if they are to have any hope clawing their way back into this fixture.
Real owns Madrid
It's safe to say Real Madrid has the bragging rights in Madrid yet again with this victory. Atletico have struggled in previous games against Real Madrid and it is looking like Real are going to knock Atletico out of the Champions League yet again.
In what was a repeat affair to last year's Champions League final, Atletico struggled to keep up with the pace of Real Madrid and were punished with 3 goals.
Ronaldo's still got it
There has been a lot of people saying as of late that Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't score in the big games anymore. Well, he's certainly silenced those people tonight with a wonderful hat-trick.
Ronaldo's first goal was a leaping header from a Casemiro cross in the 10th minute to help put Madrid fans at ease. The second goal was a trademark Ronaldo shot from the edge into the box dipping into the top of the goal. The third and killing goal in the tie was a great bit of individual work from winger Lucas Vázquez to find a lonely Cristiano Ronaldo just outside of the six-yard box to slot home his hat-trick.
At 32 years of age, Ronaldo is still showing why he is the current FIFA Ballon d'Or holder with what was without a doubt a man of the match performance in the Champions League semi-final. His 103rd goal in European Football will be certainly putting more than a foot in the Champions League final door in Cardiff on June 3.
