How many goals has Cristiano Ronaldo scored against Atlético Madrid?
Atlético Madrid, who go to Old Trafford in the Champions League last 16 on Tuesday, have been among the Manchester United forward's favourite career victims.
Having plundered a match-winning hat-trick in Manchester United’s 3-2 Premier League victory over Tottenham at the weekend, Cristiano Ronaldo now prepares to take on a club who are only too familiar with Spurs' pain.
25 goals and four hat-tricks against Atlético
In 36 career appearances against Atlético Madrid, who United host in the second leg of the Champions League last 16 on Tuesday, Cristiano has scored 25 goals - a haul that includes four hat-tricks. And two of those three-goal displays came in Europe’s elite club competition.
In the 2016/17 semi-finals, Cristiano’s first-leg treble for Real Madrid set up a 4-2 aggregate win, before Los Blancos went on to claim the 12th of their 13 continental crowns. Two seasons later, he repeated the feat for Juventus, his second-leg heroics ensuring the Vecchia Signora overturned a two-goal last-16 deficit to advance 3-2 on aggregate.
No player has hit more hat-tricks against a single opponent in the Champions League.
Only Sevilla have fared worse against Cristiano
In all, Cristiano has netted seven goals against Atlético in the tournament: four for Madrid, three for Juve. In his nine-season spell at the Bernabéu, the 37-year-old also scored 12 goals against Los Rojiblancos in LaLiga, and six in the Copa del Rey.
Cristiano’s career tally against Atlético makes Diego Simeone’s men his second-favourite club victim. Only Sevilla have conceded more goals to the forward - 27.
However, it should be noted that the Portugal captain has not been on target in any of his last three appearances against Atlético. He drew a blank in two Champions League group-stage meetings while at Juventus in 2019/20, before also coming away empty-handed from United's 1-1 first leg draw with Atlético last month.
Rangnick: "Not so easy to score three" against Atlético
Speaking ahead of Tuesday’s return at Old Trafford, United boss Ralf Rangnick seemed unconvinced of Cristiano’s chances of notching up a fifth career treble against Atlético, but backed the veteran to be firing on all cylinders despite facing Spurs just 72 hours previously.
"I'm not worried that he has not been able to recover so far,” Rangnick told reporters. “He's always been a person who looks quite a lot after himself, his body, he exactly knows what to do so I'm not worried about that.
“If he can score another three goals we will see. It's not so easy to score three goals against this team at all. His overall performance was just good [against Tottenham], if not even very good, and this is obviously what we hope to get from him again tomorrow night. It's not only about Cristiano, it's about the whole team.”
Manchester United vs Atlético Madrid: live with AS USA
You’ll be able to follow live-text coverage of Manchester United vs Atlético Madrid with AS USA. Rob Train will be building up to the Champions League clash from around an hour ahead of kick-off, before talking you through the action.