Zinedine Zidane has denied that Real Madrid are over-reliant on Cristiano Ronaldo as he prepares to welcome back his superstar forward for the Champions League meeting with APOEL.
The Portugal international has missed Los Blancos' opening three La Liga fixtures due to a five-match suspension passed down to him for his shove on the referee in the Supercopa de Espana win over Barcelona.
Madrid have made a slow start to their title defence, drawing their last two games on home soil to lose ground on current pacesetters Barcelona and Real Sociedad, leading to suggestions of a dependency on main man Ronaldo.
Zidane does not believe that this is the case, though he is happy to have the 32-year-old back in his squad for the visit of APOEL on Wednesday night, as his ban does not include European games.
"You know who Cristiano is," he told reporters. "We cannot talk about a dependency, but I always want him to be with us. What interests me is that everyone can play.
"Cristiano brings not only goals, but is a leader as well and he always wants to win. He transmits that [to his teammates]. We are all happy that he is with us.
"He's very focused on what he has to do. In addition, he is very happy to play again because it is what he likes, what makes him happy. And we are happy too, because he is mentally very well, physically very fine. I am very happy to see him on the pitch again.
"He's going to play tomorrow, but we're not going to have him on Sunday. I hope Sunday is the last game of the season that he is not here."
Ronaldo scored 12 goals in 13 appearances for Madrid in the Champions League last season as they went all the way for the third time in four years.
Daniel Lewis
