Why Cristiano Ronaldo must listen to Zinedine Zidane if he wants to emulate Alfredo Di Stefano

The bigger they come the harder they fall. When an "average" player retires he can drop down a league and use his Saturday’s off to get his FIFA agent’s licence sorted. But a superstar who has been the best player on the pitch ever since he first kicked a ball must face up to not being the first name on the team-sheet, or even not being on the team-sheet at all, and mere mortals can only imagine what that is like.

Watching Cristiano Ronaldo spit his golden dummy last Sunday when he was taken off with 20 minutes still left of Real Madrid’s draw with Las Palmas, and then reading Ian Hawkey’s excellent biography of Alfredo Di Stefano published this month, has been a reminder that the more spectacular the career, the more "Broadway" the decline can be.

In "Di Stefano" Hawkey tells how the greatest player to ever play for the club fell out with Real Madrid president Santiago Bernabeu to such an extent that Bernabeu changed the name of the Mediterranean cruiser he liked to summer on, from "The Blond Arrow" (Di Stefano’s old nickname) to "Marizapalos" in honour of his wife.

As Di Stefano’s prowess on the pitch had faded, Bernabeu’s willingness to suffer his off-the-pitch excesses faded too. He took umbrage at the club’s then record scorer advertising lady’s tights, of all things, while wearing the sacred club shirt (and without his permission).

That was in 1962 and although he kept winning things for two more seasons, he was troubled by a nagging back injury and his last competitive game for the club came in the 1964 European Cup final that Real Madrid lost to Inter Milan. Di Stefano was offered a new contract post-match; but it stipulated that he would no longer be a player. It was vague about what exactly he would be doing and he flatly refused it.

He was 37 when he last played for Real Madrid and when he moved to Espanyol his brilliant La Liga career petered out in undignified fashion with former Real Madrid team-mates noticing that, having lost the pace and power of old, he began to pull the shirts of opponents for the first time in his career. To rub salt in the wounds his debut for Espanyol was a defeat to a young and vibrant Real Madrid team.

He sent president Bernabeu a telegram before he went back to Argentina that read: "I was a phenomenon and a rogue (…) I was disillusioned and nobody helped my morale. As a father you let me down. You have not had children, and that shows. Fathers always forgive."

Ronaldo would be the first to admit he’s also a phenomenon. He is probably not a rogue – at least not in the Di Stefano vein. And if another advert for women’s tights comes along no doubt Real Madrid will drive Ronaldo to the shoot, so long as they get their image rights cut.

The biography shines a light on the massive differences between eras but for all that has changed there are still common threads and we are now entering the final third of the career of the second most incredible player in Real Madrid’s history. If, as expected, he signs a new contract in October keeping him at the club until 2021 that sets up the prospect of a 35-year-old Ronaldo playing for Madrid.

What kind of player will he be? His agent Jorge Mendes is probably right when he says there is no reason to believe the capacity to score goals will diminish. Those towering headers and the free-kicks will continue and the awards should do too. But the sheer weight of games will start to take their toll and that’s why Zidane’s management of the minutes he has on the pitch should be seen as a positive and not something to rage against.

He didn’t like Zidane taking him off at the weekend. "No-one did more for the 2-1 than me," and "f*** you", were several of his responses. But four days later he gave one of his best Champions League performances for a long time with a goal and an assist in a match Real Madrid were careless not to win.

When it comes to career endings, satisfactory scripts are difficult to write. Ronaldo's will be far greater if there are no more substitution sulks. Just more goals and more records, interspersed with the occasional "come in number 7, your time (for now) is up."