SERGIO RAMOS SAYS Cristiano Ronaldo showed why he is the best player in the world with a hat-trick that sent Real Madrid into the Champions League semi-finals at the expense of Wolfsburg.
Madrid trailed 2-0 from the first leg in Germany but a stunning individual performance from Ronaldo saw them seal progression with a 3-0 win at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday.
Ronaldo followed up his 15th-minute opener by levelling the tie with a header less than 90 seconds later, and completed the turnaround 13 minutes from time with a marvellous dipping free-kick.
The result keeps Madrid’s hopes of an 11th European crown very much intact and Ramos was quick to heap praise on Madrid’s Portuguese talisman.
We left our souls on the field for this victory. We had promised the fans and they deserve it,” Ramos told beIN Sport.
“Cristiano deserved to be the hero of this magical night. He gives everything for this shirt. He’s number one.
Cristiano has yet again showed why he is the number one in the world. We rightly deserved the win and will enjoy going into the semi-finals.”
Meanwhile, winger Gareth Bale told BT Sport: “Obviously it’s an amazing feeling, we knew it was going to be a difficult test coming into the game being two down but, as I said after the game in Wolfsburg, we fully believed we could do it and showed we can.
We had to show our true team spirit, true character. We definitely did that tonight and we showed the world what we’re capable of.”
With Madrid into the semis and just four points behind a Barcelona side suffering a slump in form by their lofty standards in La Liga, Zinedine Zidane’s men are still in with a chance of doing the double.
Asked about that prospect, Bale added: “As I said after the Barcelona game, a loss always creates doubt in the team for them and hopefully that’s the case. All we can do is concentrate on ourselves, try and win every game and see where that takes us.”
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