A countdown of the 10 most memorable moments of Portuguese football in 2018: PART 2
2. Cristiano Ronaldo winning the Champions League and moving to Juventus for more than 100 million euros
Another significant moment for Portuguese football this year was related to the country’s star man - Cristiano Ronaldo.
At the age of 32, Ronaldo was still deemed the very best player in the world in 2017, winning the Balon d’Or for a fifth time, and 2018 has been another sensational season for the Portuguese legend.
While Real Madrid fell short of the league title domestically, not able to topple Barcelona, in the Champions League Ronaldo once again led Real Madrid to victory, finishing as top scorer in Europe’s elite competition, finding the back of the net on an impressive 15 occasions.
It meant that the Spanish giants won the tournament for a third year in a row, a sensational achievement that had never been done before in the Champions League era.
One of the defining moments in the season proved to be his outrageous overhead kick in a 3-0 victory over Juventus, a goal that earned him a standing ovation from the home crowd, something which Ronaldo clearly truly appreciated.
It proved that age really is just a number, and that Ronaldo, contrary to the beliefs - and perhaps even the hopes - of large swathes of the global media, was still not on the decline.
And his endeavours earned him an astonishing multi-million pound move to the Italian giants, joining Juventus for a fee believed to be in the region of 105 million euros - far more than he had initially cost Real Madrid nearly a decade earlier.
At the age of 33, Ronaldo smashed the previous record expenditure for a player of his age, and it was a sign that he still had so much to offer even the very best of football clubs for the years to come.
Ronaldo’s shock transfer - and his spectacular overhead kick - together constitute one outstanding season for the Portuguese legend, and is very much worthy of inclusion on this list of memorable moments for Portuguese football in 2018.
