Ronaldo hat-trick lifts Real

Posted Friday, July 22, 2011 by Supersport.com

Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat trick and said his Real Madrid team "is coming into good form" with a 3-0 win over Mexican club Guadalajara in a friendly on Wednesday.

"We played well tonight," the Portugese forward said, "but we'll get better."

Ronaldo, who was frustrated in the first half, scored three goals within a nine-minute span in the second.

Chivas goalkeeper Luis Michel stopped two Ronaldo free kicks in the first half and saw a clear opportunity go into the side netting in the 39th minute.

However, in the 73rd minute Ronaldo split two defenders, took a pass from Karim Benzema that he brought down with his left foot and used his right to fire past Michel for the belated opener.

"It took us a while to score that first goal because of the way Chivas was defending us," Estaban Granero said. "But once we got that first one ..."

Three minutes later Ronaldo converted a penalty when defender Pepe was taken down by Omar Areliano.

Ronaldo finished off his hat trick with a blast to the lower right corner of the net in the 82nd minute.

"We really haven't had our whole team together because of the World Cup, because of South America, because of injury, because of surgery," Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho said.

"But with training camp this year starting from day one we've been working well together."

Guadalajara coach Jose Luis Real noted that "we went with substitutions with players from our league in the second half.

We need to get them ready for the season. And we didn't play as well in the second half as we did in the first."

Real Madrid outshot Chivas, 23-8 with a 12-0 edge on shots on goal.