Cristiano Ronaldo sang Champions League anthem like a national anthem in 2017 | OneFootball

Cristiano Ronaldo and the UEFA Champions League were a match made in heaven.

There is no tournament the Portuguese superstar loves more and, were we to list every iconic performance he has returned in Europe’s premier competition, we would be here for a very long time.

His glorious love affair began in the colours of Manchester United where he was a crucial component of Sir Alex Ferguson’s side that won it all in 2008.

However, it was in the famous white of Real Madrid that Ronaldo and the Champions League truly became synonymously inseparable from each other.

As Zinedine Zidane’s side ruthlessly carved out a European dynasty, it was Ronaldo on the front-line, playing football from another planet and blowing opponents away with frightful ease.

Ronaldo taking a tie by the scruff of the neck and turning it completely on its head became almost so metronomic that you could schedule it in your calendars six months before it even happened.

He would go onto win the title four more times, including an unprecedented hat-trick from 2016 to 2018.

In short, Cristiano is the Champions League’s, and the Champions League is Cristiano’s.

However, if you are in need of more evidence of the special bond the now-Manchester United star shares with club football’s greatest prize, we have a clip from 2017 that might just tip you over the edge.

The Champions League anthem, is, and always will be, part of the fabric of everything we love about football as fans and it seems that affection even extends to the players on the pitch.

In the aforementioned clip, Ronaldo is seen singing along to the evocative song as if it were a national anthem.

Superb – Ronaldo is one of us.

Of course, as was their way, Madrid would go onto the win the Champions League that year thanks to a dominant victory over Juventus in the Cardiff final.

Whether we’ll see the Portuguese veteran in another final of his beloved Champions League looks a long-shot right now but, as always with Ronaldo, it would take a brave man to bet against such a possibility.