Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice on his 400th Real Madrid appearance as the Champions League holders defeated Borussia Dortmund 3-1.
Gareth Bale struck an exquisite volley as the record 12-time European champions secured an 18th-minute lead at Signal Iduna Park, with the Welshman supplying Ronaldo for Real’s second just after half-time.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang poked in Gonzalo Castro’s cross to give Dortmund hope, but Ronaldo rifled past Roman Burki to cement a second straight win for Real in Group H and leave the Germans still without a point.
Here is three things we learned…
Bang. Bang. Two brilliantly taken goals, and as easy as that Cristiano Ronaldo laughed in the face of suggestions that he’s out of form to take his Champions League tally for the campaign to four goals from two games.
Oh…and a career total of just 110 goals in the competition, more than double the total of legends like Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eusebio and Alfredo Di Stefano.
Not bad, is he? With his sixth sense of sniffing out goalscoring positions, his ability to strike forcefully and accurately with both feet, his fitness, his hunger and above all his relentless thirst for goals, there’s nobody quite like Cristiano and, love him or hate him, only the utterly biased could not admire him.
Despite now being 32, there’s no sign of Ronaldo slowing down. His game has changed, for sure, and he doesn’t charge from box to box like he used to. But he’s still scoring at as fast a rate as ever, and probably will for the next five or six years. Ronaldo is here to stay – for a long time yet.
Cristiano Ronaldo has now scored 93 goals in 90 #UCL games for Real Madrid. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/rCQSsPCYhY
— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) September 26, 2017
Unlike many occasions recently, it helped Ronaldo’s cause that he had a capable partner in crime up front, with Gareth Bale finally getting back to his best to justify his inclusion ahead of Marco Asensio.
Bale’s beautifully dispatched volley to open the scoring, caressed into the net with perfect timing and accuracy, is already a contender for the Champions League goal of the season, and his assist for Ronaldo’s first was perfectly placed for his colleague to dispatch.
But more important and encouraging than those specific contributions was his all-round display, with his powerful running and excellent movement creating countless problems for a Dortmund defence whose high line sometimes appeared to have been purposely constructed to suit the Welshman.
Bale has become accustomed to having every performance ruthlessly dissected by his many critics, but after a display like that, surely he has succeeded in silencing those detractors for at least, well, a few minutes…
Sitting top of the Bundesliga with high-scoring win after high-scoring win, blessed with young talent and a highly rated new coach…everything looks like it should be in place for Dortmund to provide a major threat to Madrid and Tottenham in Group H.
But it hasn’t happened, and two consecutive 3-1 losses have left the German club staring down the barrel of an early elimination even with four games still remaining.
Against Madrid, their main problem was a defence which has only conceded one goal in six league games but could have easily shipped half a dozen tonight. Their high line was near suicidal, with practically every carefully weighted Madrid pass from deep looking capable of creating a chance, and Bale and Ronaldo could not have asked for a more compliant defence to showcase their talents.
They weren’t much better going forward, with highly rated frontman Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang producing what could be politely described as a stinker.
Overall, it was a very bad night at the office for Dortmund. Unless they improve drastically, there won’t be many more in this season’s Champions League.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang didn’t have his best night
