Cristiano Ronaldo will go down as one of the greatest footballers and sportspeople of all time.

Across spells with Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, the Portugal legend has scored countless goals, won nearly every trophy available and proven himself as a supreme athlete.

However, even for a real-life Benjamin Button that is battling father time with admirable strength, Ronaldo himself would admit that he isn't the player that he was six years ago. 

Putting a finger on when Ronaldo was at his very best is easier said than done.

Sure, we all know his best years came during his nine-year spell at Real Madrid, but in which of those seasons did we truly see CR7 at his footballing zenith?

Ronaldo's best ever year?

Well, one of the strongest answers is most probably 2013, the first year where Ronaldo managed to wrestle the Ballon d'Or away from Lionel Messi since his inaugural win in 2008.

And considering Messi had scored no less than 91 goals during the prior calendar year, it says everything that Ronaldo was able to produce a 12 months that served as a worthy rebuttal.

Ronaldo scored an astonishing 69 times, as well as producing 17 assists, for both club and country to completely eclipse Messi's tally of 45. 

Ronaldo was a monster in 2013'

There might not have been the Champions League trophies that would come later in his Real spell, but Ronaldo was arguably never better on an individual level.

And we can feel pretty confident that the video evidence supports the statistics because YouTuber 'Legasus' has made a compilation completely focused on Ronaldo's 2013.

Attracting 250,000 videos and standing at over 11 minutes long, the montage shows Ronaldo at the height of his physical prowess and using the skills that were commonplace in his early United days.

From mesmerising step-overs, lethal long-range finishes and blistering pace, the video is well worth a watch and can be viewed in full down below:

What an absolute beast.

It seems as though no defence was safe from the Portuguese in 2013 and even Barcelona are seen humiliated on a number of occasions throughout the video.

And sure, while Ronaldo might have made a strong start to life at Juventus and won the MVP award during his debut season, he's producing nothing like he did during his early years in Spain.

That's no criticism of Ronaldo, he's still one of the best in the world at 34 years old, but it's easy to forget just how incredible he was in that famous white jersey.

No matter what he goes on to achieve in the seasons to come, Ronaldo has given us enough memories from 2013 to last a life time, never mind from the rest of his stellar career.