“Cristiano has a gift for showing up at decisive moments and scoring the goals you need,” said Michael Carrick, his coach at United. “I said don, but the truth is that his is a lot of work. Today [por ayer] he played in mixed positions, between the left winger and the forward, and also fulfilled his defensive tasks ”.

0

Rulli, Albiol, Juan Foyth, Estupiñán (Raba, min. 78), Pau Torres, Capoue, Parejo, Moi Gómez (Boulaye Dia, min. 84), Yeremy Pino (Chukwueze, min. 72), Trigueros (Alberto Moreno, min. 72) and Arnaut Danjuma

2

De Gea, Nilsson-Lindelöf, Harry Maguire, Alex Telles, Wan-Bissaka, Anthony Martial (Rashford, min. 65), van de Beek (Bruno Fernandes, min. 65), McTominay, Fred, Jadon Sancho (Mata, min. 92) and Cristiano (Matic, min. 90)

Goals 0-1 min. 77: Christian. 0-2 min. 89: Jadon Sancho.

Referee Dr. Felix Brych

Yellow cards Yeremy Pino (min. 32) y van de Beek (min. 40)

Cristiano Ronaldo scored the 800th goal of his career at La Cerámica. The 36-year-old Portuguese striker has been subjected to a whistle storm since he jumped to warm up on the Vila-real grass, closely supervised by the local public, who know him well and fear him. Justly. The minute 76 was consumed when a ball bounced after Fred’s dispute with Capoue reached his feet – nothing is accidental in the history of the systematic finishers. Without seeming to hesitate, he raised the ball over Rulli and the goalkeeper had no choice but to watch how they condemned his error at the start. The 0-1 stoned Villarreal and took United out of the well, qualified for the second round of the Champions League thanks to the victory.

“The rival’s punch had its impact,” said Unai Emery, after the game. “They had a dangerous bench with Bruno Fernandes, with Rashford, with Lingard … When they entered, they gave the game a boost that we could not counteract.”

“I’m going to stay with the positive,” concluded the coach; “For 60 minutes we were superior to the favorite, we created chances by controlling the ball and we deactivated that they could run into space. De Gea was decisive with his saves and it is true that we made a mistake at 0-1, but more than an individual mistake [de Rulli] It was an error in our concept of the game, which aims to have the ball and find spaces to evolve through combinations, and that is something that gives us security and that has allowed us to have scoring chances like Danjuma’s … But the goal He could have arrived differently because before the 0-1 Sancho was able to score thanks to a pass from Bruno Fernandes ”.

Error by means of, Cristiano added his 800 goal, a circumstance that makes him the top scorer in history, perhaps only below Pelé. The battery of targets stretches from his days at Sporting Lisbon (five goals), through his two spells at United (128), his absolute consecration at Madrid (451), his tour in Turin (101) and his goals with the Portugal team (116).

Cristiano’s 800 goal serves to drag United out of the crisis that last Saturday precipitated the dismissal of its coach Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer, replaced by interim Michael Carrick pending the appointment of another “interim”, in the words of the club , who will occupy the bench until June.

According The Guardian the Spanish Ernesto Valverde is one of the candidates. The club has not denied that its football director, John Murtough, had a conversation with Valverde, whose resume, they say, proves that he knew how to get along with Lionel Messi, which, out of sympathy, would credit him to train Cristiano’s team.

You can follow EL PAÍS DEPORTES in Facebook and Twitter, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.