ronald reaches 80 goals as madrid ease past shakhtar published: tuesday 15 september 2015, 22.57cet real madrid 4-0 shakhtar donetsk cristiano ronaldo's hat-trick took the portuguese forward on to 80 uefa champions league goals, karim benzema also scoring.
a cristiano ronaldo hat-trick inspired real madrid to a comfortable victory against shakhtar donetsk as the 2014 winners got their uefa champions league campaign off to an emphatic start.
ın a breathless start, ısco fired over after just three minutes; 60 seconds later marlos' cross just evaded alex teixeira after raphaël varane, who departed injured at half-time, was caught in possession.
the home side should have taken the lead on 15 minutes as ronaldo's neat through ball found karim benzema, who rounded andriy pyatov but fired over.
despite gareth bale limping off, the merengues opened the scoring on the half-hour. pyatov spilled ısco's cross from the left and this time benzema made no mistake.
shakhtar's hopes were all but extinguished early in the second half as taras stepanenko was dismissed for a second bookable offence and ronaldo quickly increased madrid's lead to 3-0 with two penalties after darijo srna and márcio azevedo were each adjudged to have handled.
that gave the portuguese 11 uefa champions league penalties, group stage to final – a new record. ten minutes from time he nodded in after pyatov could only parry marcelo's effort from range, his 80th uefa champions league goal crowning a fine opening night for madrid.
man of the match: cristiano ronaldo madrid's main man scored three times in the second period to take his tally to 80 uefa champions league goals and move ahead as the competition’s outright top scorer.
where the match was won after an even first half-hour, pyatov's failure to hang on to ısco's cross undermined shakhtar's efforts. following the dismissal of stepanenko early in the second period madrid took charge and there was only going to be one winner.
tactical changes despite initially lining up with a 4-2-3-1, madrid coach rafael benítez changed to a 4-4-2 when bale was forced off through injury in the first period. the spaniard introduced mateo kovačić on the right of midfield, moving ronaldo up front with benzema, and it paid dividends with a second-half hat-trick.
