Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick against Atletico Madrid to send Juventus to the quarterfinals of the Champions League on Tuesday. This is Ronaldo's first hat-trick since joining Juventus last year.
Juventus bounced back from a 2-0 first leg defeat last month as Ronaldo scored a header in the 27th and 49th minute. In the 86th minute, he converted a penalty to send the Italian side to the quarterfinals.
Having scored his eighth hat-trick, Ronaldo has levelled with Barcelona's Lionel Messi. Ronaldo has also scored 25 goals against Atletico in his career.
In the first few minutes of the game, it seemed as if Juventus had taken the lead but VAR showed that Ronaldo had fouled Atletico goalie Jan Oblak before Giorgio Chiellini fired in the rebound. However, Ronaldo made up for it by netting the ball from Federico Bernardeschi in the 27th minute. Bernardeschi came close to scoring for Juve in the 35th minute but narrowly missed the goalpost.
Three minutes into the second half, Joao Cancelo shot the ball for Ronaldo to head the ball into the net, with Oblak clawing it out from under the crossbar, but goal-line technology showed that the ball crossed the line.
Ronaldo converted the spot kick after Bernardeschi was pushed over in the penalty area in the 86th minute.
At the end of the match, Ronaldo was seen celebrating by mimicking the obscene gesture made by Atletico coach Diego Simeone in the first leg game. The UEFA fined Simeone 20,000 euros for his conduct and it remains to be seen if Ronaldo will face the same fate.
