It was billed as a changing of the guard. The moment that the baton of European footballing supremacy would be passed from the incumbent greats to the new challengers. Last week’s Champions League clash between Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain was laden with narrative and rhetoric before a ball had even been kicked, but few predicted the final outcome.
Real Madrid put up a stirring rebuttal against those who had written them off, with the performance of Cristiano Ronaldo embodying the spirit of the evening. The 33-year-old’s individual duel with Neymar was much anticipated and the Portuguese put down a marker, proving to the Brazilian, and the rest of the footballing world, how he remains at the peak of his effectiveness.
This went against the grain of common consensus. After all, Ronaldo had been written off in the weeks preceding the match against PSG, with even this writer proclaiming that the former Manchester United attacker was finished at the top level. But it’s worth considering that goals against PSG, as well as a strike against Real Betis at the weekend, has drawn Ronaldo to within a single goal of Lionel Messi’s tally for the season, with the former deemed to be finished, and the latter the frontrunner for this year’s Ballon d’Or?
So have reports of Ronaldo’s demise been greatly exaggerated? He found himself in a similar scenario last season as he struggled to find his top form in the first half of the campaign. The death knell was sounded as experts and critics marked the end of the Portuguese forward’s career, but he went on to lead Real Madrid to a second successive Champions League title, scoring 12 times in just 13 appearances in the competition.
While it’s true that Ronaldo might not possess the physicality of previous years, that he can no longer surge past opponents in the way he used to, he has found a way to keep his best performances for when it matters most. Against PSG, a litmus test for Real Madrid and Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo showed up and made the difference.
Great players are defined by how they perform on the big stage and Ronaldo continues to deliver at that level. There are factors in his recent upturn in form, with the return of Marco Asensio to the Real Madrid lineup in particular helping to get the best from the Portuguese, but the primary force behind Ronaldo’s drive to stay at the top is Ronaldo himself. He revels in proving his critics wrong. The more he has, the more he seems to succeed. By that token, he’s far from finished.