Gravity-defying free-kicks like those against Portsmouth, Bolton, Sporting and Sunderland. The Ronaldo trademark – a rapid, Cruyff turn-style flick from one foot to the other which pulled a hapless defender out of position before he slammed the ball past a keeper (like those against Dynamo Kiev and West Ham, the latter in the opening minutes of a crucial game in the title race on the penultimate matchday). A goal rush was coming: over the course of the campaign Ronaldo would show just what a rounded, uniquely talented player he had become not just through the sheer number of goals scored but also by their dazzling variety.īullet headers like the one at Rome's Stadio Olimpico in the Champions League quarter-final an iconic header that mixed the brute strength and neck muscle fortitude of football’s all-time greatest headers with the sheer athleticism and hangtime of an NBA superstar. He scored his first goal of the campaign against former club Sporting in the Champions League a low, sweeping header at the Estadio Jose Alvalade for which he implored pardon. You have to remind yourself you're a better player than they are.”Ī three-match ban followed, but Ronaldo learned his lesson and returned from his suspension a more mature player. Ferguson claimed his star winger had been provoked but fined his player anyway. In United’s second game of the season he was sent off in a 1-1 draw at Portsmouth for appearing to aim a headbutt at Richard Hughes. Like Suarez in 2013/14, Ronaldo’s 2007/08 campaign began under a cloud. Quite simply, it was the year Ronaldo revolutionised the role of a winger in modern football. If the stats are impressive, they only go so far in illustrating just how brilliant Ronaldo was in a year he was instrumental to Manchester United’s league and Champions League double, secured in the soaking rain of a cool night in Moscow. The Portuguese's minutes-per-goal ratio that year is also superior to Luis Suarez’s rate of a goal every 95.5 minutes in 2013/14, though Suarez racked up double CR7’s six assists.
He fell just short of equalling Denis Law's record tally of 46 goals in all competitions at United.
Not long after his 23rd birthday, Ronaldo eclipsed George Best's 40-year-old record of 32 goals from a winger in one season. He started as the wee show-off who was desperate to convince everyone how good he was, as Sir Alex Ferguson once described himĪt the time, the very concept of a winger scoring so many goals was nigh on unheard of. If those numbers appear staggering enough in their own right, it’s worth a reminder that Ronaldo was only 22 at the start of this jaw-dropping season. In the league he hit 31 goals in 34 appearances at a rate of a goal every 88.6 minutes. In one of the finest – if not the finest – individual seasons in Premier League history, Ronaldo scored 42 goals in all competitions.