Just read a
very good article by Sid Lowe in the Guardian about Real's (or Ronaldo's, really) victory over Athletico the other night. It ends like this:
Down in the car park leading out of the north end, Madrid's players filed through serious, silent and in formation. At the other end of the passageway, Ronaldo was standing before the cameras grinning. "I'd like to thank my team-mates; without them I wouldn't have got the goals," he said before dashing through, stopping briefly to have his picture taken with an Atléti fan in a wheelchair, and on to the bus.
This time, he was wrong. Ronaldo might have got the goals without them. This time, he carried Madrid. He re-established the four-point lead at the top of the table and may still carry them to the league title. If not in play - Ronaldo is not the kind of footballer who controls the game – then certainly in that sense of constant, imminent danger. The brutal beauty of the way he plays. The sheer decisiveness. This is far too good a team to ever talk about a one-man show, but his impact is astonishing. Ronaldo is the Zumosol Cousin: the powerful, perfect specimen, all white teeth and physique, who steps up to rescue his little cousin. When he is flying, he can appear unstoppable, ubiquitous. As one columnist grandly put it: "He is not Cristiano, he is the whole of Christianity."
Against Atlético, the goals came from nowhere. "Cristiano condemned us with his goals," said Simeone. "Those goals did not fit the way the game was going but they were decisive. Goals are more important than ideas."
He has condemned so many others. Atlético were one of only three teams against whom Ronaldo had not scored from goals other than penalties (the others were Barcelona and Tenerife). Now he has remedied that. And with a goal, with two goals, that were barely plausible. Overall, his figures are even more absurdly brilliant. You could argue that they belong to a different age but for one thing: they are better than the figures racked up in pretty much any age, ever. His three on Wednesday night were his 38th, 39th, and 40th of the season. It was his seventh hat-trick. It was also the first time a Madrid player had scored three at Atlético since Alfredo di Stéfano in 1952-53 and he became the first player to score 20 away goals in a season. Before last year, no one had ever exceeded 38 goals. Ronaldo has done it twice in a row. He has 138 goals in 136 games for Madrid, for goodness sake.
So he is cocky? So what? Why shouldn't he be? It is all too easily forgotten that when he made his "rich, handsome and good at football" comment his tongue was wedged at least part of the way into his cheek, that he was right, and that it is that attitude, that self-worth, that has made him the player he is. Or that it is his teams that benefit. The sheer bloody-mindedness, the obsession, the ambition, is almost suffocating and supremely impressive: the drive and determination. The relentlessness of his dedication has proven successful. Ronaldo has more than earned the right to puff out his chest; puffing out his chest has earned him the right to puff it out some more. He hasn't always played brilliantly, of course, but nor has he ever hidden. Back in the days when people wore black boots, the very few who wore coloured ones stood out a mile. White or blue, yellow or red, the verdict was always the same: you'd better be really bloody good.
Last night Ronaldo wore fuchsia.
Pretty much sums up my feelings on Ronaldo perfectly.