He almost lost his head on occasion (CL final was such a big example), but he allways kinda been like that. What I allways found remarkable about him is how he never gotten that 2nd yellow (can you remember such cases?). Most players who get a yellow, they either get scared away from doing any more tackles, play cautiously/too timid, or lose it and get it (Chiellini, Caceres, and Licht are such players). With him, he had this very disciplined and extreme fine line dancing where he still played with intensity, but just more controlled and smarter, still wrecked shit, but knew just when to not go too hard in a sitaution to not tempt the ref. He makes tackling an art form these days, despite being ridicolously complete player.