Not just a flat-track bully: Ronaldo sticks it to the critics yet again
Zinedine Zidane promised Real Madrid would "try something new" against Atletico. He wasn’t bluffing, either. The formation for the start of Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg at the Bernabeu was not one we had seen lately, a notional 4-3-1-2 that looked more like a 4-3-2-1, with Isco roaming precisely wherever he wanted.
If the intention was to unsettle the visitor, to undermine Diego Simeone’s weeks of meticulous planning, then it succeeded. Atletico was all at sea, lost without the anticipated reference points. Madrid racked up eight shots in the first 18 minutes alone.
And yet the goals, when they came, were nothing novel at all. A hat-trick from Cristiano Ronaldo - his second in as many European games, and his second of the season against this opponent as well.
The Champions League's all-time leading scorer, doing his thing in the Champions League's latter stages? Don’t stop us if you've heard this one before. These were Ronaldo’s 101st, 102nd and 103rd goals in the competition, but it is the way those totals are distributed that is most astonishing of all.
Related: Watch: Ronaldo nets another hat-trick to put Real Madrid on brink of final
Fifty-two have arrived in the knock-out stages, in which he has played a total of 66 games. The remaining 51 are spread between 72 group matches. To put that in punchier terms: Ronaldo scores goals more regularly against the best teams in this competition (0.79 per game) than he does against what should be, on average, weaker opponents in the early rounds (0.71 per game).
Can there really still be anyone out there who would call this man a flat-track bully? Ronaldo has now scored 13 goals in Champions League semi-finals alone - more than any other player in the history of this tournament even if you include the old European Cup. His 21 Madrid derby goals are a record, too.
Some will argue that his first on this occasion should not have stood. Ronaldo was onside when he rose to head home Casemiro's cross from the right in the 10th minute, but he had been stood behind the last defender when Sergio Ramos sent over a previous delivery moments before.
It was, at best, a debatable call. A player is only considered active if he either touches the ball or clearly impacts on an opponent seeking to do so. In this instance, Ronaldo never entered Stefan Savic's field of vision before the latter had headed Ramos' initial cross clear.
His next two goals would provoke no such disputes. Ronaldo was ruthless in taking advantage of Filipe Luis' missed interception in the 73rd minute, hooking the ball with his trailing leg and then smashing a superlative strike beyond Jan Oblak from the edge of the box. The next finish was simpler, swept home from close range after Lucas Vazquez squared from the left.
Nor was this the sum of Ronaldo’s contribution. Throughout a wildly entertaining first-half, he had been a persistent menace, not only bullying Atletico's centre-halves but drifting wide at times to torment the full-backs as well.
The shifts and shimmies deployed to deceive Lucas Hernandez in the 29th minute were a flashback to Ronaldo's days as a tricky winger. His cross was right on the money, too, and if Karim Benzema had kept his overhead kick on target, this might have been the goal of the season.
Related: The ridiculous numbers behind Ronaldo's latest scoring outburst
Madrid would adapt its approach in the second half, slowing the game down and showing more caution. Simeone's adjustments no doubt also played a role, his team no longer pulled so easily out of position, but ultimately did nothing to prevent the host from padding the lead.
Most troubling of all for the Rojiblancos was the their inability to muster an attacking threat of their own. They had scraped together a mere four shots by the end, only one of those requiring a save from Keylor Navas.
Simeone knows his team is capable of more than this. Not a month has passed since Atletico drew 1-1 with Madrid at the Bernabeu in La Liga. In a season when Barcelona's cast of stars overturned a 4-0 deficit against an opponent that had played them off the park in the first meeting, perhaps we should guard against the suggestion that any result is completely impossible in football.
A comeback from 3-0 down against this opponent, though, feels implausible at the very least. Barring a miracle, Madrid will eliminate its neighbour from this competition for the fourth time in as many years.
Zidane promised us something new, and he delivered. No one will be more delighted than he is, if the outcome was once again the same.