Is Cristiano Ronaldo worst possible team-mate for Gareth Bale ?

Is Cristiano Ronaldo the worst possible team-mate for Gareth Bale?

The petulant reaction of Real Madrid's superstar striker to Welshman's goal against Levante was widely criticised - but Bale must still prefer to have him in the team

After Real Madrid won their 10th European Cup last May, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Cristiano Ronaldo’s former colleague at both Manchester United and the Bernabéu, launched another critical assault on the player who had once so irritated him at Old Trafford.

When Ronaldo scored the final goal in the 4-1 victory over Atlético Madrid, ripped off his shirt and ran to the corner flag to celebrate on his own, Van Nistelrooy said: “Ronaldo's celebration isn't my thing. Very disrespectful to your team-mates, like they did nothing

It was not the first time the Dutch striker had found Ronaldo’s behaviour galling – the showboating and ball-hogging during his early days at United made Van Nistelrooy, waiting in the centre for service, “look like a fool”, he said, and the frustration spilled over into a training-ground argument that effectively ended the prolific centre-forward’s stay at United.

In that context, Ronaldo’s histrionics during Real Madrid’s 2-0 victory over Levante on Sunday are nothing out of the ordinary. The faces he pulled and the shapes he threw during the game have littered his career. Lionel Blair could not do a better mime of exasperation – the shakes of the head, eye-rolls, air-swipes, smack-downs, hands on hips in classic double-teapot pose, the leaning backwards with palm placed at the base of the spine, impressions of Willem Dafoe's death scene at the end of Platoon, all accompanied with an array of gurning and rueful exhalation. They are the classic poses of a man who, despite all evidence, acts as if the world is against him.

The most remarkable thing about his animated displays of pique this time, however, is that it gave the impression that he was more preoccupied by a personal sense of injustice at not getting on the scoresheet himself than contentment that Gareth Bale finished off the chances, broke a nine-match drought and answered some of his critics in the crowd who have singled him out for jeers.

Ronaldo is no fool. He knows that a camera has been trained on him to capture every facial twitch throughout his six seasons at Real Madrid and yet he could not contain his annoyance, even though - when you look at the stats this season - Bale is no serious threat to Ronaldo's pre-eminence in the Spanish capital.