Despite the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to action against FC Zürich yesterday in the Champions League was more symbolic than anything else (he played just 20 minutes), the Portuguese star all the same paid a high price in the FTBL ranking.

Ronaldo had a plank of 33.36 rating points to beat in yesterday’s game, a plank deriving from the 5:0 trashing of 2nd from-the-bottom Xerez CD in La Liga on September 20. The 20 minutes the Portuguese spend on the pitch earned him a paltry 2.33 rating points in our system, which led to his exit from the FTBL World Top 23, our list of the world’s top 23 players.

The slide might not even end there: in his next 3 games Ronaldo will have to “defend” 74.62 rating points, approximately 25 points per game. The first of these games will be against bitter rivals Barcelona. It is quite possible that Ronaldo will see his FTBL score fall to 140-130 points by mid-December even with relatively good performances. A return to the elite would be possible only afterwards.