In every great player’s career, there are some matches that stand out as the most important. Matches like the Champions League finals or the World Cup finals. In these matches, there are also goals that will forever have their portraits hung on the wall in their homes.
There will also be matches that will never be forgotten not because of the match itself but little significance will forever make the headline and the kind of goals that were scored. For Cristiano Ronaldo, he has so many goals to look back and clap for himself on what he has done in his career.
One set of those goals is his bicycle kicks. Ronaldo bicycle kicks are unique to him for so many reasons. He has very few of them in his career but they are special and important to him.
He has scored several goals that will rank top for awards, in fact score goals that have won goal of the season but having a bicycle kick was one thing that elude him early in his career.
He has never given up on scoring one and like he is known to always work hard to achieve anything he wants, he finally got it. We will be looking at two of Ronaldo bicycle kicks and how they became iconic goals that will rank high amongst his career goals.
It is also interesting to note that he score either for playing club or country which shows that he does it almost all the time and now becoming a part of him. That is how champions prove themselves.
They go to the difficult ground and do the impossible because they believe impossibilities never existed in their dictionaries.
Ronaldo bicycle kick against Faroe Island
Switzerland was the group leader. The match against Faroe Island was meant to mean so much to the Sellecao if they are to qualify for the world cup next year.
They knew what was at stake and what to do to get the right result. Ronaldo was obviously going to start this game for them. This is why he had to ensure he was fully fit and ready for the game.
When the match kicked off, all eyes were on Ronaldo to make things happen, the way he has been doing right from the past. When he got a pass from Bernando Silva before converting to a goal inside three minutes of kick off. It was all like a magic. Many never saw the goal coming that early.
Beyond the goal coming early, the manner by which he struck the ball is mesmerizing. It was a cross coming from Bernando Silva that was of the right height and speed meeting Ronaldo at the right place at the right time.
This is a very big chance for him to convert which he did very well. How he did it was the talking point of the match. It was an overhead kick. Ronaldo scored a bicycle kick for the first time in his career. This was magnificent and pure class
He could have easily taken the ball immediately Silva crossed to him in another way, but he did the unthinkable at that point in time and scored a goallazo! Ronaldo bicycle kick in that match will continue to have a clear picture in the minds of all fans that saw the match live.
He ended that match with a hatrick which sum up the kind of night he had slaughtering the defense of Faroe Island. Portugal won the match 5-1 and eventually qualified for the World Cup in 2018 top of the group. This was a turning point in his career for country.
Four years earlier, he also scored a hatrick in their playoff match against Sweden. That was another iconic moment in his career.
Ronaldo bicycle kick against Juventus
If you are looking for crazy goals in the world at the highest level, the Champions League is probably the best place to get enough of that. Everyone brings their hey game to the party.
It is even more interesting to see sweet goals in the latter stages of the tournament when the stakes are higher and all that is needed is just goals and not how its score.
The quarter finals between Juventus and Real Madrid at the Juventus Arena was the highest master class from Ronaldo. It was the first leg between Juventus and Real Madrid and all Madrid wanted in that game was to have an advantage going into the return leg in Spain.
Ronaldo had other plans. He wanted to take the game by scurf of the neck. He wanted Real to win by a good margin. He wanted it all. It was his second of the night and he perfectly executed the goal. A bicycle kick that will rank amongst the best goal ever in the Champions League history.
“It was in my opinion, one of the best goals of my career so far”. Those were his words after the game. He bagged another hatrick in that game. What made this the Portuguese international bicycle kick even special was the fans of Juventus in the Stadium.
They applauded him after the goal and the gesture was just too kind to him not to show some respect to them. That night will mark one of the nights that made him decide to join Juventus the following season. In fact that his bicycle kick was voted as the goal of the year in 2018.
What will be needed to get to that level of scoring a goal like that week in week out will be more hard work. After that game, he had to admit that he had been trying that in many games and in practice but with little success.
This is the level Ronaldo has taken this to. He wants to be remembered for he has done long after he has stop playing the game.
Looking into how he has become the player he is today and how he has shaped his career to suit his ambition, all will connect to how he made it all work out that the bicycle kick could be traced to. Starting his career at Sporting Lisbon and growing organically till he reached the top was something worth emulating.
That is why many are not surprised by his success and many feel he could even do more at 33. Not sure that can be said about another footballer. Ronaldo classic bicycle kicks is a result of consistent hard work on and off the pitch.
In past interviews, he talked about how he ensures he train well and also eat the right food and not get distracted. The level of concentration needed to be at that top is similar to the concentration needed to hit the ball with the right technique, at the right angle and at the right time to score a bicycle kick.
That is why Ronaldo will be argued to be the best player in the world ever. He has created a legacy that can argue that for him despite not being as talented as the likes of Messi or the Brazilian Ronaldo and many more players of other generations.
Why it is important to talk about Ronaldo bicycle kick is not that he doesn’t have enough other goals to talk about, in fact, he has enough others, but his bicycle kicks came after several tries and he never giving up. This is a trait that need to be learned by the new generation players.
The act of staying true to your game and not giving up is what will give you moments like that of the Champions League quarter final against Juventus. If his other iconic goals are to be added to the list, then the whole day will not be enough to talk about his greatness.
What is most interesting about the goals is that they are well spread across all competition for both club and country. Ronaldo scored a hatrick in the game against Sweden in the 2014 world cup qualifier play offs. Without his goals, his country would have missed that world cup.
He scored a goal in the final of the Champions League at Manchester United. Without that goal, Chelsea could have won the game without it going into extra time, even if he lost his penalty during the kicks. The hatrick against Spain in the 2018 world cup is another one man show that he has helped his country triumph.
He has never shy away from competition and going to Juventus after the word cup was just another prove that he has everything covered and ready to test himself everywhere as he said he want to play till he’s 40. Incredible player he is. That is why he scores incredible bicycle kicks.