Watch: Cristiano Ronaldo responds to Champions League exit with 33-minute hat-trick

The rumours linking Cristiano Ronaldo with a return to Real Madrid have spread like wildfire in this past week, with neither the player nor the club moving to pour cold water on them.

Cristiano likes the idea, and Madrid could certainly use him given the financial difficulties they face in engineering moves for Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe. The major obstacle, however, is the Portuguese’s salary.

Cristiano is currently collecting €31m net per season at Juventus, a significant outlay for a club that lost €113.7m in the first six months of this season due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This has been exacerbated by their exit in the last 16 of the Champions League last week at the hands of Porto.

The Portuguese was able to put the speculation to one side on Sunday afternoon by turning up and executing with his usual precision for Juventus against Cagliari, remarkably scoring a hat-trick in the opening 33 minutes.

Victory would be important for Juventus. It would see them move just a point behind second-placed Milan. Inter, ten points clear even with victory, is a more difficult proposition to try and catch.

Tags Cristiano Ronaldo La Liga Real Madrid
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