Cristiano Ronaldo broke the record again to become the Champions League’s leading all-time goalscorer.
Until tomorrow, that is.
Ronaldo is now on 80 goals, thanks to his hat-trick this evening, and Lionel Messi will begin tomorrow night’s game in Rome on 77.
The Olimpico was the venue for Messi’s favourite ever goal - the header against Manchester United in the 2009 Champions League final - and he will be looking to punish Roma on Wednesday evening.
And the worst news for the Serie A side? He’ll be extra fresh after only playing half an hour at the weekend.
Real Madrid beat Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0 as they kicked off their quest for a record eleventh Champions League victory with a comfortable win.
A first-half goal from Karim Benzema and a hat-trick from Cristiano Ronaldo were enough to see home the Spanish giants as they punished their ten-man visitors.
Yet the three points came at a price for the Rafael Benitez’s men.
Gareth Bale was taken off injured after just 29 minutes with an injury to his left leg, something which will concern both Wales fans and Real Madrid supporters alike.
But what did we learn? Ed Malyon was at the Bernabeu to find out:
The first event of a complete non-event of a first half was, unfortunately the injury to Gareth Bale.
It had been going so well for the Welshman, who had nearly broken the deadlock with a neat backheel flick from, wait for it, his RIGHT boot.
But just before the half-hour mark the Real Madrid number 11 began walking gingerly. He looked visibly uncomfortable and as the trainers came to meet him, he wasted no time in limping straight off the field, eyes fixated on the turf below him.
Bale was virtually down the tunnel before Rafael Benitez could so much as get a replacement stripped, but you feel he was in no mood to take chances with injury when he had started the season in such form.
Early reports indicated that it is a calf injury and that tests tomorrow will evaluate its severity.
From the Bernabeu to the Brecon Beacons, they will be hoping it’s not too serious.
Karim of the crop
Karim Benzema probably doesn’t get enough credit.
He is the cheapest and least glamorous of the so-called ‘BBC’ frontline, coming in at a bargain-basement £30million, and his job - rather than all the fancy stuff - is to pretty much just stick it in the net.
As a rule he has been quite good at that. 43 goals in 74 Champions League games testify to that, even if he’s received the sort of service that most strikers could only dream of.
But he still misses some, and in the first half he latched onto a wonderful through ball from Ronaldo (that service, eh?) and rounded the goalkeeper, only to shank it over the empty net on his weaker right foot.
It wasn’t to matter, with keeper Andriy Pyatov obviously feeling he’d done the France international wrong. Pyatov rectified this by dropping a simple ball at Benzema’s feet for the 27-year-old to tap home. On his left, he didn’t miss.
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