Real Madrid defeated Italian side Fiorentina 2-1 Wednesday night in the annual Santiago Bernabéu Trophy friendly match. With a heavily rotated squad, Los Blancos started slow, but picked up momentum late in the first half to win the trophy for the 27th time in club history. Here are three takeaways from the match.
Five game suspension who?
Despite not being able to play in the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup against FC Barcelona and the first four LaLiga games of the new season due to suspension, Cristiano Ronaldo is still hungry.
The Portuguese international was able to play in Wednesday’s match against Fiorentina because it was a friendly. In order to give him as much playing time as possible, manager Zinedine Zidane chose to play CR7 for the entire 90 minutes.
Did he ever take advantage of that time.
Ronaldo bagged an assist in the 7th minute helping Borja Mayoral get his second friendly match goal this summer, and netted the game winning goal in the 33rd minute with an incredible bender into the side netting.
The goal was even better than the one he scored against Barca in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup in my opinion, although the implications are not near what they were in that match.
The assist to Mayoral was very impressive as well, as Marco Asensio led Ronaldo down the left wing, and in typical Cristiano form, Ronaldo chopped stepped the defender, dribbled to his outside, and crossed the ball on the ground right to the waiting foot of Borja.
I was really impressed with Ronaldo’s intensity the entire match as he was still looking to score in the second half. With about seven minutes remaining, he rang a rebound shot right off the post, nearly bagging the brace.
This match made me not worry about Ronaldo when he comes back from the suspension, as it seems with the less he plays, the better he does.