It's time we stopped blaming Ronaldo after every blip

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Bengaluru, March 25: When Barcelona thrashed Real Madrid 3-0 in the El Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu in December, people started to question Zinedine Zidane’s competence as a manager and more importantly journalists started signalling the beginning of Cristiano Ronaldo’s end.

He scored four times in the La Liga until mid-January and has looked lost most of the season. The rise of players like Marco Asensio and Isco, who don’t really wish to pass to Ronaldo like players before them, has put him in a spot of bother. This has forced Ronaldo to make some changes to his game and these changes have borne fruit over the last few games.

At the age of 33, he is incapable of lung bursting runs, it is quite evident that he no longer plays as a winger but almost as a striker, a fox in the box. Stats show that he has made the fewest number of dribbles per game this season when compared to all others. He has also worked on his fitness and appears to be more fluid compared to the start of the season where he looked unco-ordinated while fluffing many of his attempts.

People have also noticed how he has now become less selfish and more of a team player. He has ceded his free-kick duties to Marco Asensio and even allowed Karim Benzema to take a penalty against Alaves when he was on a hat-trick.

He has scored 22 goals so far in the La Liga this season and the startling observation is that every single one of them have been within the box. His four goals against Girona and two against Egypt show that Ronaldo has peaked at the right time. With Portugal off to the World Cup and Real Madrid having a realistic chance of winning a hat-trick of Champions League titles, he could once again be the main man he loves to be.

What makes Ronaldo a champion is his self-belief. When he scored his first La Liga goal, Messi had 11 goals by then. He apparently had a bet with his Real Madrid team-mates that he will win La Liga’s golden boot. At this point in the season, Messi has 25 and Ronaldo has 22, not bad for an ageing force who had scored only four goals mid-January.