As he turns 31, Cristiano Ronaldo is facing the one battle he cannot win

With Cristiano Ronaldo turning 31 on Friday, what does the future hold for the Real Madrid forward? Beneath the six-pack and tan, even Ronaldo can’t halt his physical decline but he’s finding increasingly impressive ways to mask it, writes Adam Bate…

When Keith Richards took to the Glastonbury stage in 2013, the days of playing fast and hard for 90 minutes or more were long behind him. And yet, the Rolling Stones guitarist still delivered. There were cheers as he stepped up to sing You Got the Silver, howls when the plectrum struck for Start Me Up and joy when the riff to Satisfaction belted out from the Pyramid Stage.

For much of the intervening periods between these high points, Richards was a picture of relative inertia. Mick Taylor was drafted in for the more intricate licks, while Ronnie Wood continued to provide the ever unlikely safety net. But people remember the highlights and Richards had produced enough of them to entertain once more. The crowd went home happy.

The comparison between the septuagenarian Richards and Real Madrid icon Cristiano Ronaldo is not, admittedly, an obvious one. The musician's body is more garbage dump than temple. But as Ronaldo turns 31 on Friday, his career too is entering its twilight years. He's the one having to scale back the activity in order to keep coming up with the highlights.

Time waits for no man's fast-twitch muscle fibres. Unless you're Justin Gatlin, sprinters just don't speed up after turning 30. Muscle mass and flexibility declines. Nobody is working harder than Ronaldo to delay that process - former Real assistant Paul Clement tells tales of 3am ice baths after away trips - but it's a process that can only be slowed, never reversed.

Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in Real Madrid's 6-0 win over Espanyol at the Bernabeu Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in Real Madrid's 6-0 win over Espanyol at the Bernabeu

Look hard enough and the proof is there in the numbers. At one time, it was Ronaldo's dribbling skills that set him apart as a truly special talent. However, it's this aspect of his game that now best highlights how his strengths have changed over the years. As the turn of pace has become less remarkable, the dribbling has become less frequent.

In his first season at Real Madrid, Ronaldo averaged 3.3 dribbles per 90 minutes. But that number dropped to 2.3 the following season and by last year it was down to 1.6 per full game. So far this season he averages only 1.2 dribbles per 90 minutes. That puts him well outside the top 100 dribblers in La Liga and he's not in the top 100 in the Champions League this season, either.

Ronaldo's game has changed over the years as shown by his La Liga dribbling stats

Instead, Ronaldo has been forced to find ways around the problem and it's fascinating watching him attempt to do it. Becoming the purest of finishers has helped. Former Manchester United coach Rene Meulensteen once accused Ronaldo of trying to score "the perfect goal" by aiming for the top corner every time, but it's volume that preoccupies him now.

This season has been one of goal gluts. Eight of them have come in two games against Espanyol. There were four in a Champions League game against Malmo and a hat-trick in the same competition against Shakhtar Donetsk. Prowling the environs of the penalty area, he has scored 13 times in his last six appearances in front of his adoring Real Madrid crowd.

Keeping up with Lionel Messi is likely to get more and more difficult for Ronaldo

Of course, with so many of his goals coming in so few of his games, there is another side to this story. Ronaldo hasn't scored on his travels since November. The best in the business is becoming a Bernabeu bully on that flattest of tracks. He knows all the short cuts there, after all. As a consequence, he's been able to mask his physical decline through goals.

"I think he peaked one or two years ago," Ronaldo's biographer Guillem Balague told Sky Sports. "What we are seeing is an extraordinary striker who will continue scoring goals, but I feel his influence on the game is diminishing." Certainly, that's true of his influence on the biggest games this season. Ronaldo has failed to score in his six matches against Europe's top-20 ranked sides.

What we are seeing is an extraordinary striker who will continue scoring goals, but I feel his influence on the game is diminishing. Guillem Balague

So how long can Ronaldo continue to pull off the trick? He appears confident. "My dream is to retire at Real Madrid," he told Marca in October. "If you take care of yourself you can play until you are 40. I want to keep going for another five or six years." By November, that had changed slightly with a timetable of retirement "in four or five years" being floated.

Former Real Madrid fitness coach Valter Di Salvo once predicted that Ronaldo "will play up to the age of 38 at the top", but what's clear is that the stopwatch has started. As a battle with Lionel Messi subsides, the battle with Father Time becomes more urgent. It's one even Ronaldo can't win. But just like Richards as he sent the crowds wild at Glastonbury, he might yet be able to provide a memorable moment or two along the way.