Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as Real Madrid foiled a dramatic fightback by Galatasaray to reach the Champions League semi-finals. Ronaldo, top scorer in the competition, took his goal tally for the season to 11 to make sure that José Mourinho’s side went through despite losing the second leg 3-2.
“This match will serve as an example for us in the future,” Ronaldo said. “In football you cannot just give chances away. They made things hard but in reality we were the ones who made things complicated for ourselves. We must make sure that we are switched on for the full 90 minutes.”
Real went ahead on the night, and four goals to the good overall, when Ronaldo slid the ball in from two yards following a low cross from the right by Sami Khedira after eight minutes.
However, Emmanuel Eboué galvanised Galatasaray into action with a piledriver of an equaliser from the edge of the area in the 57th minute.
Wesley Sneijder made amends for a glaring miss moments earlier when he added a second by sending the ball between the legs of the Real defender Raphael Varane before supplying a neat finish. Didier Drogba, Chelsea’s hero in last year’s final, then sent the noisy crowd into raptures with a delightful backheel following a cross by the substitute Nordin Amrabat.
The Real substitute Alvaro Arbeloa was sent off in the closing stages for a second yellow card but Ronaldo settled his team’s nerves by adding his second of the night in stoppage time, after good work by the striker Karim Benzema.
Borussia Dortmund scored twice in stoppage time, including through a controversial goal that looked to be offside, to beat Málaga and reach the Champions League semi-finals in dramatic fashion on Tuesday.
Málaga appeared to be heading into the last four in their debut season in the Champions League but their hopes were dashed when goals from Marco Reus and Felipe Santana in the four minutes of added time sent the Germans through in a stunning encounter.
Santana’s winner left the Málaga players fuming. When the cross came in, four players appeared offside – and then, when the Brazilian defender poked the ball over the line in the dying seconds, he too looked offside.
“I have never experienced anything like this. We were already dead,” the Dortmund chief executive, Hans-Joachim Watzke, said. The Dortmund sports director, Michael Zorc, added: “It is difficult to put this into words. We were lucky tonight. The team missed so many chances but kept on believing.”
The Spaniards, who drew 0-0 in the first leg, stunned the 66,000 crowd in Dortmund when Joaquín shook off his markers and drilled in a low shot for the lead in the 25th minute.
Dortmund’s Polish striker Robert Lewandowski drew the hosts level in the 40th minute and they squandered a string of chances in the second half through Reus and Mario Götze.
Eliseu appeared to seal Dortmund’s fate when he put the Spaniards ahead in the 82nd minute, also looking suspiciously offside, and even when Dortmund equalised, they still faced elimination on the away-goals rule. But the Germans refused to surrender and sparked wild celebrations among the home fans as they booked their first semi-final spot in Europe’s premier club competition in 15 years.
Málaga, who toppled the former champions Porto in the previous round and Milan in the group stage, looked set to become the first team in Europe this season to beat Dortmund but ended up feeling they had been robbed of their chance to reach the last four.
The defeat did not go down well with the Málaga owner, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nassar Al-Thani, who fired off a series of angry tweets calling on Uefa to investigate the match. “Thank you very much for the team you have been champions on the pitch I’m sorry to go out this way injustice and racism,” he said. “I hope to open a thorough investigation Uefa regarding the Spanish club out this way Which does not affect the spirit of sport”. (Guardian)
