Real Madrid’s 5-1 aggregate victory over Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup wasn’t a Real marker, it was a proclamation: player for player, this is the strongest squad in the history of the game. No player on Real Madrid is irreplaceable, every player on Real Madrid is valued because they’re sensational.
The Royal Spanish Football Federation upheld Cristiano Ronaldo’s five-match ban on Wednesday, keeping the Real Madrid star out of Wednesday evening’s second leg of the Spanish Super Cup and the first four games of the La Liga campaign.
Ronaldo received two yellow cards in Sunday’s first Super Cup leg in Barcelona to be sent off early. His first came for taking his shirt off after scoring a brilliant goal. The second was when the referee deemed he took a dive in the box.
Before Neymar came along and threw a wrench into the machinery, Barcelona's big transfer project for the summer was finding a long-term replacement for aging (but still devilishly good) midfielder Andres Iniesta.
Obviously, the Neymar business changed things, as evidenced by the fact that Barcelona are flinging cash at any attacker in Europe with two feet and a pulse. They seem to have abandoned the hunt for a new number 10. And, no, Paulinho doesn't count.
Cristiano Ronaldo is an incredible footballer, blessed with size, speed, strength, foot skiils and awareness that would be the envy of pretty much anyone. Luis Suarez is also blessed in all these categories, just not as much as Ronaldo.
There is one skill, though, in which Ronaldo will never match Suarez's unbelievable talent: acting.
Ronaldo and Suarez each attempted dives during Sunday's Spanish Super Copa first leg. Suarez won a penalty (which Lionel Messi converted), but Ronaldo was given his second yellow card and dismissed from the match.
So what went wrong?
Lionel Messi is the good, wholesome boy while Cristiano Ronaldo is the arrogant bad boy. It’s a typical narrative when comparing the temperaments of the two, but there is evidence to support the claim, at least in terms of disciplinary records.
Ronaldo picked up his 10th career red card on Sunday in the Super Copa against Messi’s Barcelona. Messi’s lone red card came 43 seconds after making his Argentina debut in 2005.
This weekend, Barcelona began their season with a 3-1 steamrolling at the hands of Real Madrid. The first goal came at the hands of Barcelona center back Gerard Pique, who hates Real Madrid with the fiery white-hot passion of a thousand suns and was none too pleased about putting the ball into his own net so Madrid didn't have to.
To accentuate Pique's sadness, some intrepid Internet person set Pique's Blunder to the saddest song in popular culture, courtesy of Celine Dion.
When it comes to football advertisements, few have come close to matching Nike’s “Take It To The Next Level” commercials from 2008. The first-hand perspective ads put you directly in the shoes of an up-and-coming footballer, brushing shoulders with the likes of Arsene Wenger, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.
In 24 minutes of Spanish Super Cup action on Sunday, Cristiano Ronaldo accomplished what many could never achieve over the course of their entire careers. The mercurial forward has always shown an appetite for amassing marks of renown, but Sunday’s first leg at the Camp Nou had something for everyone in the spectrum of The Cristiano Ronaldo Experience.
What a goal.