The biggest game of the season, of course Cristiano Ronaldo was going to make history in it. The first time in more than a decade where he has played 90 minutes of Champions League football and not registered a shot. The first time in more than a decade that he will end a season without a club trophy. Yet more landmarks for that historical resume.
It will take the distant perspective of history to confidently place Ronaldo in his appropriate place among the pantheon of footballing greats, but tonight it felt like most of the key facets of his resume have been decided. Yes the volume of goals will swell and there may yet be a few more games when he rolls back the years, just as he did against Tottenham on Saturday. He should not be written off as a footballing force in the here and now but it is now painfully obvious that his true greatness lies in the past.
Tonight, he did whatever he could to drag it into the present. Ronaldo was not even remotely United’s worst player. Particularly at the outset he played with thrust and intensity. One moment he might drift over to the left to combine with Jadon Sancho, the next he would be on the right flank, freeing Anthony Elanga to move into the box. If Atletico Madrid were going to plug up the penalty area he was going to do whatever he could to drag them out of there.
In that impressive opening third of the game, so easily forgotten in the morass that followed, United and Ronaldo were freewheeling, all quick interplay and fizzing moves down the flank. Then came the setback: a defensive line all too easily played through, Harry Maguire careening into no man’s land, Diogo Dalot trying to mark three players at once. Renan Lodi struck and with it went United’s sense of stability and any belief in the plan that they applied themselves to in relatively impressive fashion.
That is not on Ronaldo. Nor is it entirely on him that when their chips were…
Source : cbssports
