Cristiano Ronaldo scored one hat-trick during his eight years at Manchester United. He has scored two in his last 210 minutes of Champions League knockout football. Five goals against Bayern Munich over two legs. Three against the impregnable local rivals in the first of a semi final that was supposed to be close. The immovable object against the unstoppable Portuguese. Instead, Ronaldo completed his 42nd hat-trick for Real Madrid and all but guaranteed the Merengues a berth in their 13th European Cup final.
At the start of every season we’re told that the Cristiano Ronaldo that is to come is diminished from last year’s edition. Less mobile, more limited, less flair, more tap-ins. Time has indeed slowed him, but also refined him. Rather than focus on what he can no longer do, Ronaldo has done what he has always done — become the absolute best at what he can do: score goals. He showed some of his old footwork on the wing to set up Karim Benzema for an ambitious overhead, but increasingly his place of work has moved from the left to the penalty box.
He may have more quiet games but has increasingly dominated the biggest moments, he is now the leading scorer in the Champions League knockout stages, and extended his lead as the top scorer in the semi-final stage. It’s true that his role in his last two Champions League finals has been tertiary but ruthless displays against Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid, two of the five best teams in Europe, has all but guaranteed a third in four seasons.
Football has become increasingly moved towards Swiss-army players. A centre back can no longer just defend, they must pass and play like defensive midfielders, full-backs like wingers, wingers like strikers, strikers like number 10s. The fluid trident that Ronaldo played in alongside Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez led and embraced this shift. Ronaldo wasn’t limited to stepovers and crosses, instead ending up on the end of as many as he whipped in. As he moves into the third act of his career the King of the Bernabeu has started to reverse that change. Having emerged at Sporting and Manchester United as a jet-heeled, showy winger, he metamorphasised like a lab experiment gone right into a chiselled, five-tool forward in his late twenties. Since turning 30 he has increasingly consolidated his abilities into becoming a stunning number 9 at a time when goal scorers who just scored goals were supposed to be unsustainable.
At Real Madrid he has the supporting cast in Marcelo, Benzema, Luka Modric, and Gareth Bale to counter-act the limitations that have been placed on him by age and himself. His hat-trick against Atletico was evidence that while his body may have slowed his predatory instincts have only grown. The first, a powered header having gambled on a second-time cross, the second hammered volley from the edge of the area, taking advantage as the ball ricocheted up off Filipe Luis, the final dagger a slotted finish taking advantage of a ragged Atletico back line.
There is a feeling that we admire Messi’s play because we want to and like Ronaldo because we have to. His greatness is empirically evident to us all. There is less romance surrounding the abundance of goals he has scored and the efficiency with which has has scored them. Last night was the 850th game of his career, in that time he has scored 593 goals; 399 of them in 389 games for Real Madrid. His brute force approach to the game will never inspire the same eulogies as his Argentine rival. When Barcelona struggle, Messi drops deeper to find the ball, with it a his feet he can bend the game to his will.
When Real Madrid are not at their best Ronaldo knows where he needs to be to best serve his team: scouring the opposition defence for cracks, a moment of lost concentration that he can pounce on to turn the tie, knowing just when to move and where to be so that the ball always finds him. He feasts on goals like an ageing millionaire on monkey glands, hoping that they will sustain him for a few more years. We should be so lucky.
