They finally replaced that hilarious Cristiano Ronaldo bust at the Madeira airport

Hey, remember that bronze Cristiano Ronaldo bust that we all had a good laugh about last year?

Well, it’s gone now. The airport bearing the Portuguese soccer star’s name in his native Madeira replaced the bust with one worthy of People magazine’s sexiest soccer player alive on Friday, the same day he netted a hat trick in his country’s 3-3 draw with Spain in their World Cup opener.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of liked the old one better. It had more character:

And a lot of Madeirans agree, since Sports Illustrated uncovered a petition with more than six hundred signatures demanding the old bust back. Petitioners defended original sculptor Emanuel Santos, a Madeira native who said “not even Jesus pleased everyone” in response to criticism of his work, and argued that the worldwide attention paid to the old bust made it a tourist attraction.

Of course, that attention wasn’t always great:

Bleacher Report commissioned Santos to sculpt a second bust, which he did to greater success. However, that sculpture is not the one now located at Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport.

R.I.P. Sloth Ronaldo, I guess. May you find peace in that great art collection in the sky next to the Tom Brady courtroom sketch. Make sure you guys make room for the Brandi Chastain plaque.

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Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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