Ronaldo show watch out.

Cristiano Ronaldo's drive leads to injuries, but he's still
perfect for Real
APRIL 25, 2016 7:12:00 AM PDT
By Graham Hunter
As Real Madrid and Atletico lined up in the tunnel of Lisbon's
Estadio De Luz for the 2014 Champions League final, Los
Blancos' assistant manager, Paul Clement, leaned gently to
his left so that he could look beyond the ranks of world-class
footballers and see the famous trophy.
It beckoned to him. Just for a second, the enormity of it all
hit home. The pressure bubbled up. He exhaled, a sigh of
tension that caught the attention (and the neck) of the guy
in front of him. Cristiano Ronaldo turned round, gave him a
little smile of sympathy and reassurance and said: "Paul ...
don't worry."
What Madrid would give for their superstar, this all-time
remarkable footballer, to offer them that level of calm and
assurance over the next 10 days.
Traditionally, any time of the season when a footballer
grimaces, holds the back of his thigh and then walks off the
pitch should make the alarm bells ring. At this stage of the
season, with 44 club matches and 47 goals in that period and
the Champions League final at the San Siro beckoning in
May, they should be deafening.
The instant that Ronaldo felt that "pinchazo" (isn't that a
great word for that "ouch" feeling you get when a taut
muscle complains without actually snapping?) against
Villarreal, Zinedine Zidane was filled with regret.
"It gave me a fright," the Frenchman confessed. "Every now
and again, I regret not having left him out or taken him off
early in order to avoid problems like this. Sometimes,
[substitutions are] necessary. It's just that he wants to play
all the time, every game. He even wanted to play against
Rayo [this past weekend]!"
"It's great to have a player who's always desperate to be
available help the team win," Zidane continued. "It's
spectacular for a coach to have a guy who always wants
more and more. So if it's a 'problem' that Cristiano always
wants to play, there's also 'good' within the 'bad.'"
So tiny was the muscle problem that caused him to miss his
first league match since January 2015 -- think about that for
a stat! -- the medics categorized it as a "micro" tear. Not
"mini," but micro. And so unless there's a dramatic setback,
one that history tells us can happen, he'll line up at the
Etihad against his first Real Madrid coach (Manuel Pellegrini)
and against the two men who tried to bring him to Barcelona
from Manchester United (Ferran Soriano and Txiki
Begiristain).
It's clear that the importance of this minor problem against
which he's fighting pertains directly to this tie against City --
and to whether or not he can help propel Madrid toward the
fabled Undecima (Eleventh) European Cup. The microscope
is on the micro tear, but there's a larger story and a bigger
picture in play.
If Ronaldo has a poor game or games in these semifinals, his
critics will be on his back again. Some might argue that for a
player of his exceptional status, his trophy tally runs a bit
short, and regardless of which side you take in this argument,
it's not an outrageous concept: one League title since he
arrived at Madrid in 2009 and one Champions League final,
won in absolute extremis.
During that time, he has set many personal records: global
goalscoring, Ballon d'Or, the all-time Champions League
scoring records (total and single season), all milestones
you'd imagine equate to many more team trophies than he
has accrued in a white shirt. Is it common sense that if the
Portuguese had applied the "less is more" philosophy, he'd
have had more in reserve in order to produce crucial, winning
goals in vital ties, notably the three Champions League
semifinals against Dortmund, Juventus and Bayern, when a
single goal would either have put Madrid in the final or given
them extra time?
It's not de facto, nor is it provable. But it must be arguable.
By now, it's well-established that elite players almost never
take the pitch feeling refreshed, fit and pain-free. Almost any
leading footballer at an upper echelon club will routinely play
while feeling that he needs to miss two or three games in
order not to feel pain in his foot, thigh, back, shoulder or
wherever.
You know that feeling when it's Monday morning and no
matter how restful a weekend it's been, the early commute
to work and the week ahead seem unbearable compared to
just another hour or two of sleep? Multiply that by about 50
and that's what your stellar footballers feel about the
hamster wheel of playing, training, patching themselves up,
gritting their teeth, traveling, missing sleep, coping with
tension, coping with pressure, coping with form dips, coping
with real physical pain and then starting again.
Ronaldo is one of the best, though. Not by talent alone, but
by his physique, determination and pain tolerance. He
doesn't drink, his nightlife is sporadic and (usually)
restrained. But then there's his ability to not only tolerate,
but overcome, the type of physical impairment that would
force any other player (even a superstar) to admit that, "Yes
boss, I'm happy to miss the home game against Getafe or
Almeria."
When he spearheaded Manchester United's drive to a League
and Champions League double in 2007-08, not only was he
being played largely in a position (centre-forward) he disliked
but with intense, season-long ankle pain that needed rest,
rehab and an operation to fix. So good was he that Gary
Neville told me that he felt he "owed" that title to Ronaldo's
brilliance in a way he'd only ever felt once before in his
career. A big phrase.
Ronaldo was in so much pain that he consistently phoned his
friend and mentor, Valter Di Salvo, to seek personal advice
about how to manage the ankle agony, how to strengthen it
and how to perform at peak despite the intense problem. It's
precisely this drive, obstinacy and bestial need to succeed,
lead and hurdle obstacles that makes Ronaldo still more
potent than the sum of his technical talents.
Against those who argue whether he should have rested
more over the course of his career, showing more "street
smarts" about which games to select as vital, there exists an
alternative case: If you force him to accept rest, and if you
dictate that he needs to lessen his steely standards, do you
erode something inherently important to him?
Zidane's view is clear: "Cristiano is 'untouchable' because he
keeps on demonstrating that he absolutely deserves to be
considered untouchable." Which is to say that, "I don't play
him all the time because he'll go in a strop if he's rested, or
because Florentino would reprimand me otherwise. I play him
all the time because he merits that." How much you believe
Zizou is up to you.
Could it be the case that as with many leading athletes,
nobody knows his own physique and his own body better
than CR7? How to perform exceptionally, when to rest, how
to rest, what does and doesn't constitute a problem which
will cause him to underperform?
Ronaldo's critics will say that he plays on and on and on for
personal selfish reasons like the Pichichi, Golden Boot or
Ballon d'Or. It's equally arguable that if you counselled him
and altered him in respect to these personal motors, the
things which drive him to reach and maintain extraordinary
standards, then perhaps you rob him of an edge: his
incredible drive. It's not a fact, just an argument.
Then there are Cristiano's coaches at Real Madrid -- five of
them in the six and a half years since he joined. Let's say
that you think they should show an iron fist with him rather
than a velvet glove. Order him to rest, taking the Alex
Ferguson route of rotation planning, months ahead: precisely
the football overview that kept Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes
playing at a good level late into their thirties.
Perhaps you're right. But what of those managers and their
expectations of a safe environment in which to take such
seismic decisions? Ferguson's environment at Old Trafford
was vastly different. Madrid's president, not to say all-
powerful boss, is a man who had Los Blancos legend Jose
Antonio Camacho out the door just a few days after he
chose to rest/drop David Beckham and Raúl against Espanyol
in 2004. Florentino Perez will either phone his incumbent
coach to tell him to go easy on the players because they're
grumbling or tell the players that they have personal
permission for them to do "this or that" without the coach
needing to be involved in the decision.
What kind of atmosphere is that to support a coach in
deciding that it's better to rest Ronaldo today set against the
idea that he might perform better in six weeks' time? Not a
great atmosphere; that is the truth.
With his insatiable appetite to play, win and secure new
records, Ronaldo is at precisely the club where there isn't a
culture to support a manager who'd like to say, "Cris, let's do
this differently ... ." Hopefully his micro problem isn't macro
by the time the semifinal is settled.
Whoever wins, it's to our benefit as neutrals that both sides
are at as close to full power as is feasible. But whether he is
physically able to perform at his peak against Manchester
City won't simply dictate whether he and Real Madrid reach
the San Siro final.
His decision making about his participation in every damn
game and urgent need to be ever present, as well as his
drive to show "they need me" or "they can't do it without
me," might help shape our final analysis of whether Ronaldo
is an all-time great or simply a modern great who could have
achieved much more.
Soccernet.com for live scores on the show down.