Last night’s round of 16 first leg tie between Real Madrid and PSG was an epic match that well and truly lived up to it’s hype. Neymar’s PSG side were heavily fancied against the struggling Real Madrid side, as the French side were keen to dump the defending European champions out of the competition and send a huge statement to the football world.
PSG took the lead in the first half through Rabiot, as Madrid fans feared the worst and wondered if their strong hold over the European cup was coming to an end. But you can never count out Real Madrid on a big European night, as the 12-times champions always find a way to turn on the heat on these occasions.
Madrid stormed back into the match, as they scored twice through Ronaldo and then a third through Marcelo to become the favourites heading into the second leg.
The biggest talking point of the match though came in the first half, as Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty that quite frankly defied conventional logic.
RONALDO THE SCIENTIFIC GENIUS?
The ball seemed to move a little bit before Ronaldo struck it with his right foot, as the commentators believed that the striker may have touched the ball with his weaker foot. But replays showed that the ball had actually jumped up into the air by a fraction, giving Ronaldo the task of actually hitting the ball on the volley.
This is actually possible, as Ronaldo first digs up a little bit of the grass and creates a slight depression behind the ball. When he runs to the penalty spot, he jumps and lands his left foot in such a way that it allows the ball to pop up from the spot, thereby allowing him to hit the ball on the volley and generating immense power and swerve.
While most people felt that this was too absurd to be true, Rio Ferdinand actually told in the post-match show that Cristiano used to practice such penalty-kicks at Manchester United. Gary Linekar could not believe it, but Rio was not trying to crack a joke and was actually quite serious about it.
If he did indeed do it on purpose, then we need to just applaud the absolute genius of the Portuguese legend.
