CRISTIANO RONALDO netted a sublime hat-trick on Tuesday night to put Real Madrid within touching distance of yet another Champions League final.
The Portguese forward, 32, scored once in the first half and added two more in the second as rivals Atletico Madrid had no answer at the Bernabeu.
However, even more impressively, Ronaldo‘s trio took his tally of goals in Europe’s elite competition to 103 – more than 113 of the 135 times to ever play in the tournament.
CR7 kicked-off the game on Tuesday night having scored the same amount of goals as the entire Atletico team had in their history – 100.
In scoring yet another treble, Ronaldo overtook PSV Eindhoven (102) to sit 23rd in the TEAM goal rankings, just three behind Galatasaray and Shakhtar Donetsk.
The Portugal international is also just four goals behind Monaco – who take on Juventus in the other Champions League semi-final on Wednesday night.
On top of that, Ronaldo’s tally makes him the highest-scoring footballer in European Cup history.
He has also scored the most goals at home on 54, as well as the most away strikes on 47.
Ronaldo has 52 goals in the knock-out stages – a record that leaves Lionel Messi a distant second on 37 – and 31 assists… yet another record.
The former Manchester United star’s hat-trick last night was his seventh in the Champions League, joint highest with Messi.
He is also the first player to score a hat-trick against Atletico Madrid in all European competitions.
Real Madrid are the highest-scoring team in the Champions League, with 498 total goals.
Ronaldo has therefore scored an incredible 20.7 per cent of all Real goals in Europe’s top tier.
Barcelona and Bayern Munich round-off the top three, with Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea also in the top ten.
The only other English team to score more Champions League goals than Ronaldo is Liverpool, in 19th place.
