Opinion | Cristiano Ronaldo’s hat-trick celebration trolls Diego Simeone but could land him in hot water
- Juventus superstar faces possible Uefa charge and fine after mimicking Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone
- ‘This is why Juventus bought me,’ Ronaldo says after Champions League heroics send Italian club into quarter-finals
You might have expected Diego Simeone to be seething at Cristiano Ronaldo for mimicking his crotch-grabbing celebration after engineering a remarkable Champions League escape act.
Ronaldo – who else? – scored a hat-trick capped by an 86th-minute penalty to overturn a 2-0 deficit from the first leg against Atletico Madrid and send Juventus through to the quarter-finals.
The former Real Madrid superstar has been the bane of Simeone’s existence with 25 goals in 33 games against Atletico. But he’s probably the one man the fiery Simeone would let get away with such bravado.
“Ronaldo is the best in the world, he can put in these performances on big nights,” Simeone told Sky Italia. “He will have seen how I did it [the celebration] at the Wanda Metropolitano and, like me, was trying to show his character.”
Simeone was charged by Uefa and fined €20,000 (US$22,581) for his celebration in the first leg – it remains to be seen what action, if any, will be taken against Ronaldo.
