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With Real Madrid leading 2-1 against Las Palmas at the Canary Islanders home ground, thanks to a scrappy Karim Benzema goal, Zinedine Zidane must surely have felt that the game was in the bag. With the introduction of Benzema, he had had four strikers on the pitch, and now that they had regained the lead it made sense to sub one of them off.
He chose Cristiano Ronaldo.
It was an understandable decision by the Frenchman, especially with a trip to high-flying Borussia Dortmund coming up in three days time and the Portuguese superstart still not looking 100% match fit.
"We have a game on Tuesday in Dortmund and we need Ronaldo for that game, so I changed him. He played well, as always," Zidane noted, as he explained the move
Try telling that to Ronaldo.
Shaking his head in that you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me way off his – something which he generally reserves for referees who don't give fouls against him, and team-mates who take shots instead of passing to him – he walked off muttering to himself. He wasn't even able to bring himself to look at his coach, with whom he generally shares a warm relationship as he walked past him.
Very angry, to say the least, the Portuguese superstar sat fuming on the bench, oblivious to the match going on in front of him. With Luis Suarez leading the top goal-scorers table with 5 goals and Leo Messi following closely with 4, Ronaldo would have been upset to have lost twenty minutes of goal-scoring opportunities – especially since he'd scored just the one goal in his three appearances so far.
Sitting there, he delivered a master-class in muttering-under-your-breath complaining – doing it for nearly ten minutes straight. It wouldn't have helped his mood that Las Palmas then went to eqaulise in the 85th minute.
Also, Read – Jose Mourinho hated Real Madrid, their lack of team-spirit and the entire Galactico culture
In today's age of cameras and eager lip-readers everywhere though, it perhaps wasn't a smart choice from the world's most popular (if we are to go by social media popularity) footballer. Reportedly Ronaldo's muttering was expletive filled and included su p*** madre – which can translate to your f****** mother!, or f*** you! - and F***-se - a popular Portuguese expression which lies somewhere in between f*** yourself and for f***'s sake – all directed at his coach.
Not a very wise choice to insult a member of the Zidane clan there Ronaldo. Just ask Marco Materazzi!
Las Palmas are 7th in the league table after this result, while Real Madrid – who are yet to lose a game this season – are top of the pile, and lead FC Barcelona by 1 point.
