Cristiano Ronaldo's fighting talk to Pepe during Juventus 3-2 FC Porto in 2021 ended badly

Cristiano Ronaldo simply couldn’t catch a lucky break in the Champions League with Juventus.

During his first season, all the hard work of his iconic Atletico Madrid comeback were unravelled when the Old Lady collapsed in their quarter-final second leg against Ajax at the Allianz Stadium.

Then, the following year, Ronaldo tried in vain to haul Juventus back from a 2-0 deficit against Lyon, but his near-heroic brace in Turin wasn’t enough to stop the French side going through on away goals.

However, Juventus’ luck was arguably worse than ever during Ronaldo’s final campaign in northern Italy as they came unstuck in a European thriller with FC Porto.

Having lost the opening leg 2-1 at the Estádio do Dragão, the Italian giants came from behind on home turf to force extra time with Federico Chiesa’s brace cancelling out Sérgio Oliveira’s early penalty.

But it still wasn’t to be for Juventus with Oliveira doubling his money in the additional 30 minutes by scoring a second set-piece that rendered Adrien Rabiot’s subsequent headed goal immaterial.

All in all, it made for a crushing defeat in which two players were at the eye of the storm: Ronaldo and Pepe.

Having played together with Portugal and Real Madrid, the Champions League tie pitted the former comrades together with Ronaldo ultimately watching on as Pepe produced one of the finest performances of his career.

As such, in the end, it was very much Pepe who had the last laugh in the battle of whits between iconic defender and striker, even when Ronaldo decided to bring mind games into it.

Yes, that’s right, footage posted by UEFA’s official Instagram page for the Champions League captured just how confident Ronaldo was of ultimately winning the game while in conversation