All the defenders in the world wouldn’t have stopped Cristiano Ronaldo from scoring a hat-trick against Atletico Madrid in Turin on Tuesday. Deep in the bowels of the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night – after Manchester City had beaten Schalke 7-0 in their Champions League last-16 second-leg tie – the focus was not totally on what had just transpired on the pitch outside.
All the defenders in the world wouldn’t have stopped Cristiano Ronaldo from scoring a hat-trick against Atletico Madrid in Turin on Tuesday. Deep in the bowels of the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night – after Manchester City had beaten Schalke 7-0 in their Champions League last-16 second-leg tie – the focus was not totally on what had just transpired on the pitch outside.
City’s win – following a 3-2 victory in the first leg in Gelsenkirchen – was exactly what you’d expect when the best team in England went against the 14th best in the Bundesliga. There were no limits to the depths Schalke plumbed on the night.
Their raucous away support – who earned the respect of their City counterparts with their enthusiastic support in the city centre earlier in the day fell silent somewhere during the second half. They stopped singing, stopped dancing and as they sobered up in the piercing Manchester cold endured rather than enjoyed what was left of their Champions League campaign.
Schalke’s players led by captain and goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann approached the away end at the conclusion. There they stood silent and still while the travelling party unloaded their abuse. When the players had finished taking their excoriation, they turned and slumped towards the dressing room. The whistles of their disgusted supporters carried them across the pitch and mercifully out of sight.
Man City are an automated team with Pep Guardiola the one man left employed in the factory; he’s in charge of switching the machines on. They play like this most weeks now, with 61 goals scored in 19 matches in 2019. The difference between a 7-0 against Schalke and a narrower victory against another team is usually the other goalkeeper playing better. The game on Tuesday became so ridiculously easy that City players could be forgiven for letting their minds wander. “How is the other game going?” they might have pondered. “I wonder if Liverpool and Barcelona might go through tomorrow?”
Juve have got that now and with it the sense of invincibility that Ronaldo brings with him in the Champions League. Barcelona have Messi, City are the best team… but when push comes to shove, Ronaldo knows he’s the king of this competition. And that’s why Guardiola will know no matter what players or what formation he chooses, there is simply no planning for Ronaldo’s sense of occasion.