Cristiano Ronaldo Named Best Player In Europe, Wins Creepy-Ass Trophy

Cristiano Ronaldo, the greatest soccer-playing cyborg ever made/animated, had a year to remember. First, he dragged Real Madrid to Champions League glory (pulling them through the least daunting field maybe ever, but hey, winning’s winning) in May. For his next feat, he stood on the sidelines with wet eyes and a hoarse throat as he watched his teammates win the Euro 2016 final. For this most unforgettable of seasons, he was rightfully presented the “Trophy they give the guy who won the Champions League and/or Euros,” more commonly known as the UEFA Best Player in Europe award.

Ronaldo’s merits as winner aren’t really up for debate. As the trophy’s long, colloquial name mentioned above indicates, he met all the criteria UEFA looks for in a winner: he (1) did indeed win the Champions League; (2) was in fact at the Euro tourney as a player this summer; and (3) sort of won that, too. Check, check, and check.

To commemorate this comprehensive triumph over Europe—which entailed, as he mentioned in his acceptance speech, beating finalist/Real teammate Gareth Bale in the Euro semifinal and finalist/France and Atlético Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann in the Champions League and Euro finals—Ronaldo gets to take home a hideous, hacked-up-cadaver-gilded-in-silver trophy.

Here is a photo of Ronaldo lifting the odd-looking thing (seriously: make a flesh-colored version of this stub-armed deal, wrap the lower torso in a towel, and you could’ve subbed it in for the baby in Eraserhead without losing an iota of the visceral revulsion) with pride, throwing up two fingers either to symbolize that this is his second Best Player in Europe award or to support global peace in hopes that no human being ever has their body dismembered in the specific way depicted by his shiny new award:

To be fair, it’s not like Ronaldo is unfamiliar with or disapproving of strange metallurgy.