Ronaldo hits hat-trick as superb Real demolish derby rivals

There will come a day when he is unable to do it any longer, when the despairing appeals to his team-mates at a pass gone astray will just be the grumblings of a footballer past his usefulness, but for the time being, Cristiano Ronaldo defiantly and consistently announces himself as the man for the big occasion. 

His two goals had already killed the little hope Atletico Madrid had of rescuing this Champions League semi-final in the second leg in the eight days’ time but the third, the hat-trick goal, turned it into something else altogether. Once more it was a monument to the phenomenal goalscoring achievements of this footballer with 103 goals in this competition and an unerring ability to be the right man in the right place at all the right times.

At 32, Ronaldo is having one hell of a season, one that began with him as part of the reigning European champions for club and country and now, on track for the fourth Champions League title of his career. He was not Real Madrid’s best player, but he was the man to whom they all look as the final critical part of the winning machine, the finisher with blood in his veins, the most inevitable goalscorer in the history of the European game.

He makes it look easy with these, his 101st, 102nd and 103rd goals in European competition. He had scored five over the two quarter-final games against Bayern Munich. Soon he will pass Jimmy Greaves record of 366 top-flight league goals and then it will just be a question of how high he can raise the bar for the next generation. Real’s dominance of this competition is creeping ever closer with the final Cardiff next month potentially their third European Cup in four seasons and their 12th of all time.

They crushed Atletico who never recovered from the tenth minute opener from Ronaldo. He had been in an offside position in the first phase of play and while it was a marginal call for English referee Martin Atkinson he got it right, correctly judging that Ronaldo had not challenged for the ball or prevented the defender from playing it when first it was crossed and subsequently cleared. 

For Diego Simeone’s team looked like this was a game too far, and they created just one chance of note in the first half for Kevin Gameiro, finding themselves outgunned in midfield where Toni Kroos, Isco and Luka Modric ran the show all on their own.

Of all the clubs that should know that the Bernabeu requires its visitors to be assiduous about their work from the very start, then you would imagine that Atletico were one who knew only too well of the intensity of the home team, yet they seemed to turn up late.

Dani Carvajal and Karm Benzema had already gone extremely close to opening the scoring when Ronaldo plundered the first on nine minutes. He had come in from an offside position in the first phase of play, when Stefan Savic cleared a Carvajal cross, and then stepped back onside in time send Casemiro’ awkward high bouncing volley into the goal with a flick of the neck.

A classic Ronaldo goal, the right man in the right place, and the stadium lights us so quickly in familiar celebration that perhaps the referee Marti Atkinson and his two assistants Stephen Child and Stuart Burt were still asking themselves exactly what they had seen. Real were off and running and hey looked like they could so some heavy damage in this first leg.

Atletico just seemed to be half-paced, and unsure quite how they were supposed to be approaching this test. Of course, they have injuries to Juanfran and his deputy Jose Gimenez but this was a team being passed through far too easily in midfield and the space opened up for their opponents.

When Antoine Griezmann was forced on one occasion before the break to chase an awkward ball which Carvajal reached first, the Frenchman threw his arms in the air in disgust. Jan Oblak saved from a Raphael Varane header seven minutes after the Ronaldo goal. It looked like Atletico might concede again in that first half.

For all their straining, there was one chance from nowhere, when Koke played in Kevin Gameiro and the Real goalkeeper Keylor Navas raced off his line quickly and decisively to bat the ball away from the French striker’s feet. At right-back, Lucas Hernandez for the away team found himself tested, especially in the 29th minute when Ronaldo stood his opponent up and beat him from a standing start as he always liked to do in his teenage days.

There was a fine second half performance from Isco, later substituted for his own good after one too many nibbles at Koke while on a booking. Ronaldo’s second came with 18 minutes left when he found enough space in the left channel and connected cleanly with a volley that gave Oblak no chance of saving.

From there Atletico were on the rack and caught badly between pushing forward for more or protecting the deficit as it stood. They managed neither with substitute Lucas Vazquez the penultimate part of a counter attack, his cross from the byline and then Ronaldo finishing unmarked in the centre for a goal that must have felt devastating to Atletico, and perfectly normal for their city rivals.

Source: The Telegraph