Three titles, all-time
top scorer in the tournament and individual top scorer five times - the
Champions League is back again and ready to provide some respite for Cristiano Ronaldo.
Once world football's most famous anthem plays,
the Portuguese elevates his play to another level, an insatiable appetite to be
the best in a competition he has ruled since joining Real Madrid in 2009.
On Tuesday, an in-form Borussia Dortmund side
will look to upset Los Blancos again - Ronaldo and Co. have vivid memories of
previous battles, not always positive, against their German rivals.
The game also comes at a time when Ronaldo
isn't yet at his best in a football sense and after being replaced against Las
Palmas the look on his face, his gestures, the harsh words directed at coach
... none bode well for the mental state of a player that needs to be at his
absolute best.
"We have a game on Tuesday and I thought
it was time to get him thinking about it," Zinedine Zidane noted after the
match, and downplaying the reaction to the substitution.
"He always wants to play, but I have to
think of the player.
"We had to let him rest and think about
Dortmund."
That's now in the past, the Champions League is
present.
A competition won by the Portuguese in 2008,
2014 and 2016, a competition where this machine of a player has plundered 94
goals in 95 games (surpassing the 86 goals of nemesis Lionel Messi and the 71
of Raul Gonzalez.
The challenge of being the first to 100 looms
large for a player who loves to break records.
It's true, that Ronaldo hasn't had the best of
starts to his campaign, just two goals against Osasuna and Sporting CP in four
games (0.5 per match).
Yet last year questions were also being asked
as to his prowess in front of goal.
The reason? He didn't register in 10 of the
first 16 games of the season but five against Espanyol and three against
Shakhtar smoothed over any concerns.
The debate came to an end because for the sixth
successive campaign, the Portuguese exceeded 50 goals in a season.
He was key to winning La Undecima, scoring the
decisive penalty in the final, dispelling doubts that he was past it because of
his age.
On Tuesday he has another
chance to indulge in some Champions League therapy
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