REAL MADRID: Casillas; Arbeloa, Ramos, Varane, Marcelo; Rodriguez (Jese 61) Kroos (Illaramendi 57), Modric; Bale, Benzema (Hernandez 61), Ronaldo
GRANADA: Oier; Foulquier, Mainz, Babin (Murillo 61), Juan Carlos; Fran Rico (Silvestre 57), Iturra; Ibanez, Rochina (Piti 53), Candeias; El Arabi
Cristiano Ronaldo ran riot as Real Madrid destroyed Granada by eight goals in a whacky encounter at Santiago Bernabeu. The final score read 9-1 with Ronaldo scoring five of them including an eight minute hat-trick in the first half.
It all began with Gareth Bale’s opener in the 25th minute which broke the barriers of a fragile Granada defense. The visitors were anyways getting battered by the Madrid attackers and James Rodriguez’s return to the starting XI brought the X-factor back in this side.
From then it was all Cristiano show as he scored a quick hat-trick. He opened his account in the 30th minute when James’ slick ball was excellently picked up the Portuguese and he made no mistake in slotting the ball in the far corner. In the 36th minute, he pounced on Oier’s shoddy keeping as the Granada keeper parried Marcelo’s cross right at Ronaldo’s feet.
And finally two minutes later, he completed his hattrick when Gareth Bale’s pass from left was met by him inside Granada’s box. Real went into the half with an emphatic 4-0 lead.
It was a long afternoon for Granada who are winless at Bernabeu since 1974, and it looked like they will have to wait for quite some time to break their duck.
Soon into the second half, Karim Benzema scored a quick brace inside five minutes. The way Real was playing it seemed that they would get into double digits. By the 54th minute, Ronaldo scored his fourth of the match.
The Portuguese was far from done for the evening as he added a fifth in the 89th minute as Modric crosses in to the box and Ronaldo does what he does best!
Granada got a consolation goal as Ibanez scored as wriggled away from Arbeloa and slid the ball past Casillas. This was a complete team performance and showed Real’s intentions as they mean business.
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