Cristiano Ronaldo managed to end his goal scoring drought, which went on for two matches, after scoring in the 2-0 win over Schalke in the Champions League. This was the last 16 tie for the current champions and they were expected to progress with relative ease.
But this was the situation when the draw was made and a lot has changed since then. Madrid’s form has worsened of late and manager Carlo Ancelotti has been finding it difficult to get a consistent run going. The team suffered its worst defeat of the season in the 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Atletico Madrid.
Apart from the defeat, the performances of Ronaldo have also been worrying the Spanish club. The former Manchester United star returned from a two match suspension against Atletico Madrid, but he failed to make any impact in the game. This was followed by another blank in the 2-0 win over Deportivo la Coruna.
In normal circumstances, failure to score a goal for two consecutive matches will not be seen as a goal drought. But this will be the case for a player who has scored 34 goals in all competitions this campaign. Ronaldo is on course to going past 70 for the season.
After his goal against Schalke, Ancelotti remarked that the real Ronaldo was back.”Cristiano is back. Today we needed a game like that, with this attitude. Everything went well.He scored, he played well and gave an assist. It’s not a problem for us if he doesn’t score for a game or two but it’s obvious that the goal did him good.It wasn’t only a goal for the statistics. It was an important goal – the lead goal,” said Ancelotti. The Real Madrid boss was not the only one to raise Ronaldo after this performance, as he was also joined the opposition boss Roberto di Matteo.