By Chris Wright
As of late, there has been increasing concern amid certain Spanish press circles that Cristiano Ronaldo is actually regressing when it comes to taking free-kicks.
Ronaldo’s set-piece calling card has long been him going through all three minutes of his vainglorious “baby owl stance” pre-free-kick rigmarole before clattering a 100mph shot into the shins of some unlucky putz in the wall, but at least he used to stick the odd one away to keep everybody happy.
However, even staunch advocates AS are beginning to have their doubts after noticing that Ronaldo currently hasn’t scored directly from a dead ball in his last 50 attempts – his last goal coming in April of last year in the Champions League semi-finals against Bayern Munich.
Spanish football statistician Mr Chips has crunched the numbers and concluded that Ronaldo is actually going backwards when it comes to set-pieces.
Indeed, the stats for the Real Madrid star’s last 50 attempts are fairly woeful…
Last 50 direct free kicks taken by Crisitano: > 21 blocked > 13 out > 16 saved by keeper or woodwork And ZERO goals.
— MisterChip (English) (@MisterChiping) March 1, 2015
That said, it’s worth remembering that such is his monolithic ego, Ronaldo attempts to shoot from absolutely everywhere – thus greatly reducing his conversion chances.
Also, Ronaldo (who has been forced into sharing free-kick duties with Gareth Bale of late) has still managed to bag himself 30 La Liga goals so far this season and has also stuck away 55 of his last 60 penalties for Los Blancos, so all is not lost quite yet.
Oh well, we’ll always have Portsmouth…