Cristiano Ronaldo said his Real Madrid team ''is coming into good form.''
''We played well tonight,'' the former world Player of the Year said after a 3-0 exhibition victory over Chivas of Guadalajara on Wednesday night, ''but we'll get better.''
Ronaldo, who was frustrated for the first 45 minutes, scored three goals within a nine-minute span in the second half before 38,211 fans at Qualcomm Stadium.
Ronaldo had been stymied by goalkeeper Luis Michel in the first half. Michel stopped Ronaldo on two free kicks and a clear opportunity which he hit into the right side of the net in the 39th minute.
However, in the 73rd minute Ronaldo split two defenders, took a pass from Karim Benzema that he brought down with his left foot and kicked it with his right past Michel for the game's first goal.
''It took us a while to score that first goal because of the way Chivas was defending us,'' Estaban Granero said. ''But once we got that first one ...''
Three minutes later Ronaldo converted a penalty kick when teammate Pepe was taken down by Chivas' Omar Areliano.
Ronaldo finished off his hat trick with a blast to the lower right hand corner of the net in the 82nd minute.
Iker Casillas, star goalkeeper of Spain's World Cup championship team, took over for Antonio Adan in the second half for Real Madrid.
''We really haven't had our whole team together because of the World Cup, because of South America, because of injury, because of surgery,'' Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho said. ''But with training camp this year starting from day one we've been working well together.''
Chivas coach Jose Luis Real noted that ''we went with substitutions with players from our league in the second half. We need to get them ready for the season. And we didn't play as well in the second half as we did in the first.''
Real Madrid outshot Chivas, 23-8 with a 12-0 edge on shots on goal.
Ronaldo picked up a yellow card in the second half.
