It is official: Cristiano Ronaldo will miss Real Madrid's next five matches. The Portuguese forward has received the suspension for pushing the referee in Sunday's 3-1 win over Barcelona at Camp Nou. It could have been worse, though, and it may actually be a blessing in disguise for Los Blancos.
Ronaldo returned to training later than his team-mates after appearing for Portugal in the Confederations Cup earlier this summer. The 32-year-old is, therefore, behind in terms of fitness and started on the bench as Real retained the UEFA Super Cup with victory over Manchester United in Skopje last Tuesday.
On Sunday, he was left out of the team again, coming on in the second half to score a wonder goal before being sent off minutes later after he was adjudged to have dived in the area. In his obvious frustration, the Portuguese pushed the referee in the back and the incident was mentioned in the official's match report.
Punishment for such offences varies between four and 12 matches, but Spain's Competition Committee handed Ronaldo a five-game ban on Monday, meaning he will miss the Supercopa second leg against Barca, as well as Liga fixtures versus Deportivo La Coruna, Valencia, Levante and Real Sociedad.
With a two-goal advantage to take into the second leg of the Supercopa, however, Madrid will be big favourites to claim the trophy as coach Zinedine Zidane has plenty of talent in reserve, with Luka Modric back from a ban and Marco Asensio in line for a start following his own sublime strike at Camp Nou.
As Zidane said of Ronaldo's suspension, "We can’t change it and we’ll try to win [the Supercopa] on Wednesday without him. Even with 10 men, we still fought and we believed in the win until the end."
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