It's a move that had grown in likelihood over the last few days but finally on Tuesday, Cristiano Ronaldo's departure to Juventus was confirmed.
The Portugal captain leaves Real Madrid for Serie A after nine years which have seen him plunder goal records that only Barcelona's Lionel Messi has matched.
As Ronaldo begins a new adventure, we got the thoughts of our European football correspondent Graham Hunter about the motives behind the move for both clubs and player as well as what's next for Real Madrid as they move on from their most prolific goal-scorer in a generation.
One notable aspect of his time at Real Madrid was that Ronaldo was brought to the club by the former president Ramon Calderon rather than current incumbent Florentino Perez.
"As much as though Cristiano Ronaldo has made Florentino Perez the great president he wanted to be, more than David Beckham, more than Figo did, more than Zidane the player did, there has been this constant sore, this constant weeping sore that it was Ramon Calderon who signed Ronaldo but was out of office by the time the deal was fulfilled and Ronaldo has never looked upon Florentino Perez as the man who came and got him and wrenched him from Manchester United and Florentino Perez has always resented the fact that it was a previous president that signed Ronaldo," said Graham.
He also added that Ronaldo would have regarded "the fact that Real Madrid were willing to lower his buyout clause to €100 million as a terrible insult".
And on choosing Juventus, Graham feels the night he scored that brilliant bicycle kick goal in the Champions League quarter final match at the Juventus this Spring as a "tipping point", with the player having been applauded by Juve fans despite scoring against their team.
You can listen to the full interview on the podcast player.
