Cristiano Ronaldo made a Lionel Messi bet with Real Madrid team-mates in 2017/18
Cristiano Ronaldo bet his Real Madrid team-mates he would beat Lionel Messi to the Pichichi award in the 2017-18 season, despite the Barcelona man being 11 goals ahead.
The former Los Blancos striker started the season in poor form, scoring just two goals until the start of December, but was confident of turning his poor performances around. Meanwhile, Messi raced ahead, scoring 11 goals in his first eight fixtures, including hat-tricks against Espanyol and Eibar.
However, according to Marca, Ronaldo was confident he would finish with more goals than Messi and made a bet with his Madrid team-mates that he would swoop the Pichichi trophy that season.
My favourite inspirational story in all of football was when Cristiano Ronaldo, 11 goals behind Messi, bet his Real Madrid teammates he'd still win the Pichichi and, after months of hard work, training, dedication, and bags of goals finished the season 12 goals behind Messi. pic.twitter.com/mbcuPsIABb
— Thomas (@6BDORS) October 25, 2021
The Portuguese star eventually found his scoring boots, and closed in on Messi by the time March rolled around. But the former Barca man pulled away and ended up finishing the season on 34 goals - eight better than Ronaldo.
Messi scored 45 goals across competitions, while Ronaldo finished with 44, after scoring a staggering 15 goals in the Champions League. That was also the season Ronaldo left Madrid at the end of the season to join Juventus in a £99m deal.
Barcelona went on to win the LaLiga that season while Madrid beat Liverpool 3-1 in the final in Kiev to win a third Champions League in a row.