In all praise for Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored four goals as champions Real Madrid thrashed Girona 6-3 in an entertaining La Liga game and moved to within four points of unseating Atletico in second place, Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said that “Ronaldo is very important to his team and that he’s tremendously ambitious”.

Satisfied with his team’s performance, Zidane praised Ronaldo in the press conference and said, “He’s a very important player for us. He transmits an important and positive energy to the group. He knows himself very well and knows when he has to stop a little. He’s always in very good form, come the end of the season. He’s got an eye for goal and he’ll never lose that. Cristiano has scored 22 goals, three behind Messi and hopefully he can catch him, it’s important for him and for us too. When he’s plays well, the team plays well.”

“He’s unbelievably ambitious and that comes across in every training session and in everything he does on the pitch. If he has a penalty in training, he will take it with the maximum concentration. It’s what makes him different from the rest,” Zidane was quoted by www.realmadrid.com.

Talking about the team’s performance, the coach said that the team would like to carry on like this. “We’re only interested in carrying on like this. We want to try to take second place. We’ve rediscovered our confidence in recent matches. We’ve scored lots of goals at home of late. It’s something that we didn’t do at the start of the season. We’re on good form at the moment and on a positive run. I’m happy for all the players because we’ve never thrown the towel in. We’re going to try to continue in this vein,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lucas Vázquez, who scored Real Madrid’s third goal against Girona said, “Today was a big game, it was important to win and do it in style. We put in a good performance and now we’re going in to the international break, which will do us good. We’ll go and work with the national team and when we come back we have some important matches and we have to be ready to perform.”

“I’m happy with how things are going, enjoying getting minutes and playing with confidence. I try to give my all and work hard, paying back the trust placed in me with goals, assists and helping the team win,” he said.