The defining image of this Real team isn’t a priestly boot room or the intellectualism of total football. The defining image of this team is Cristiano Ronaldo’s abs
Oh. He’s here again. The man with the rapacious desire for annihilating success in his eyes. In the end it was a strange kind of glory for Cristiano Ronaldo on Tuesday evening as Real Madrid progressed precariously but also, somehow, inevitably to another Champions League final.
There has been a lot of talk about Ronaldo’s stripped-down role in his late prime. But this was a performance of such minimalism it might have been etched on a grain of rice, a vision of the ultimate endgame some years from now whereby Ronaldo is wheeled on to the pitch by a litter of footmen, emerging from his bathing machine to patrol a roped-off zone around the penalty spot, sampling the air, occasionally dropping into a series of “muscle poses” while in the background a football match takes place.
Related: ‘Liverpool will be crushed by Real’s legend’ – Spanish press on Champions League final
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