Aaron Ramsey felt the need to apologise to Cristiano Ronaldo after he opened the scoring in Juventus ' 2-1 win at Lokomotiv Moscow on Wednesday.
Just four minutes of the game had elapsed when home goalkeeper Guilherme spilled a Ronaldo free-kick behind him, with Ramsey getting to the ball to knock it in as it trickled towards the goalline.
Both UEFA and Juventus credited the Welshman with the goal, which was his first in the Champions League since a strike for Arsenal against Monaco in March 2015.
Whether or not the goal would have gone to Ronaldo had Ramsey not have touched it is up for debate, as Guilherme had clearly dropped the ball forward before it struck his leg and went behind him.
But given that the Portuguese is such a relentless hunter of goals, Ramsey appeared to be somewhat sheepish when celebrating it with his teammates on the pitch, before he later confirmed he had said sorry to the Champions League's all-time record goalscorer, who has 129 strikes in the competition.
"I thought the keeper was a lot closer to me and had a chance of diving back and maybe clearing it," Ramsey told reporters after the match.
"My instinct took over to make sure that it went over the line. I've apologised to Cristiano."
Lokomotiv equalised shortly afterwards through Alexei Miranchuk, before substitute Douglas Costa won it for the visitors in stoppage-time after brilliant link-up play with the former Chelsea forward Gonzalo Higuain.
The win secured Juve's place in next year's knockout stages, with Bayer Leverkusen beating Atletico Madrid 2-1 in Group D's other game.
"We still have work to do to finish top but we achieved our target of qualifying tonight, so we're happy that we've done that," added Ramsey, who now has two goals in his eight Juve appearances.
