Marca: “Another miracle”
Alaba’s failure would be painful, because the defensive wobbled against City immense. “Manchester made life very difficult for us, we had no access at all,” he said, “They always have solutions and a very, very good positioning across the whole pitch.”
After the early 2-0 lead, City missed several opportunities to screw up the result. Instead happened “another miracle”, as Marca wrote. In the ace it said: “No one kills Madrid, Madrid is in immortal mode.” The English Daily Newspaper “The Guardians” put it this way: “Playing against (Real Madrid) is like walking through a park with a lion roaming free. Alright, even quite enjoyable, exciting. And then suddenly it’s not alright.”
Disgrace to Tiraspol
As a reminder: in the group stage of the Champions League, Real disgraced themselves with a 1-2 home defeat against the blatant outsider Sheriff Tiraspol from Transnistria. In the round of 16 threatened after the 0-1 in the first leg against Paris Saint-Germain the end. In the second leg too, the Madrilenians were 0-1 down until the 61st minute.
And in the second leg of the quarterfinals against Chelsea, they only scored in the 80th minute to make it 3-1 and thus saved themselves in extra time. There then secured Karim Benzema with his goal to 2:3 the semi-finals.
Benzema: nine goals in the knockout stages of the Champions League
“Who else?” – is now added to the Frenchman’s goals. Three goals in the second leg against Paris, three goals in the first leg against Chelsea – and now two again against Manchester City. “It’s unbelievable what he’s playing this season,” said Alaba. “It’s difficult to find words for what he does week after week.”
Converted the penalty to make it 3:4 in the 82nd minute Benzema by “Panenka” lob. His outstanding self-confidence enabled him to finish in such a hard-nosed manner, Real’s captain said. You have to know: Only a week earlier had Benzema in the league game at CA Osasuna (3:1) missed two penalties.
Promised for the second leg Benzema “Magic”. However, it will be difficult to top the fast-paced and spectacular first leg. That was 4:3 “one of the most breathtaking Champions League semi-finals in recent history”, once again DailyMirror wrote.
Source: red/sid