On the final day of the La Liga season, Ronaldo scored his 2nd hat-trick in the space of a week to seal his position as the top goalscorer in Spain and Europe for the 2014/15 season. In doing so, he picks up the Pichichi trophy and European Golden Shoe for the 2nd year running.

It’s Ronaldo’s 4th European Golden Shoe in total, having picked up 3 whilst at Real and 1 in the red of Manchester United. This latest triumph is a significant one as it takes him past Messi’s total of 3 European Golden Shoe awards to hold the record outright.

Players with the most European Golden Shoe Awards

Player	Number of Wins
Cristiano Ronaldo	4
Lionel Messi	3
Gerd Muller	2
Ally McCoist	2
Mário Jardel	2
Thierry Henry	2
Fernando Gomes	2
Dudu Georgescu	2
Diego Forlán	2
Eusébio	2

Today’s hat-trick also marked his 8th (eighth) of this La Liga season, equalling Messi’s record for the most hat-tricks scored in a single league season, a tally which he racked up during his record-breaking 2011/12 season.

And that’s not all! Ronaldo’s goals today also extended his extraordinary goals tally in all competitions this season to 61, a personal best for Cristiano who bagged 60 goals in the 2011/12 season. It’s also a personal best in terms of La Liga goals, as his final total of 48 league goals beats his previous best of 46 from the 2011/12 La Liga season. This, however, wasn’t enough to topple Messi’s outrageous record of 50 La Liga goals in a season (also from the 2011/12 season).

Records broken or equalled by Ronaldo today

• Most hat-tricks in a single La Liga season – 8 hat-tricks (shared with Messi)
• Most European Golden Shoe wins – 4
• Only footballer to score 60+ goals in all competitions in 2 different seasons (shared with Messi)
• Personal record – 48 La Liga goals (2 more than in 2011/12)
• Personal record – 61 goals in all competitions (1 more than in 2011/12)
• Personal record – best goalscoring ratio in La Liga – 1.371 (1.211 in 2011/12)

Finally, this latest hat-trick (his 31st hat-trick in 6 seasons at Real Madrid) has pushed his total goals tally for Real onto a staggering 313 goals in just 300 appearances. This takes him to within 10 goals of Los Blancos’ all time top-goalscorer; the legendary Raúl, who sits on 323 goals, although he achieved this total in a much more human manner, having played 741 games for the club over 16 years. Ronaldo is also just 3 goals short of Raúl’s La Liga goal total of 228.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a true phenomenon; of that there is no doubt. However, despite his heroics this season, his Real Madrid team have finished the season without a major trophy, which will no doubt frustrate Ronaldo who has won only 1 La Liga title in his 6 seasons at the club.

Lionel Messi on the other hand may have lost his personal goalscoring battle with CR7, but he will feel he has won the war as he picked up his 7th La Liga winner’s medal today. He can also look forward to 2 more finals in the next 2 weeks, with a famous treble being the tantalising award if his team are victorious in both.