UCL: Clinical Madrid dent Bayern image
The Spanish giants comprehensively
outplayed holders Bayern Munich to
edge ever nearer to a 10th European
Cup success
COMMENT
By Kris Voakes | International Football
Correspondent
Not since the days of Zinedine Zidane, Luis
Figo, Roberto Carlos and Raul have Real
Madrid been in a Champions League final,
but they will finally get a dig at La Decima in
Lisbon next month after a scintillating first-
half performance blasted Bayern Munich out
of sight on Wednesday.
The second leg of their semi-final clash at
the Allianz Arena was poised to be a tight
affair, but Madrid had very different ideas.
The 4-0 win which rounded off a 5-0
aggregate triumph was completely and
utterly deserved, and served as a warning
that this is a side primed for the grandest of
successes come May 24.
All of the pre-match talk suggested that the
Blancos only needed one goal to make it
mission impossible for Bayern. They got it in
the 16th minute, when Luka Modric’s right-
wing corner was headed precisely home by
the unmarked Sergio Ramos.
The centre-back killed the tie with a second
just four minutes later from a Gareth Bale
free-kick with Bayern’s defence again going
missing, and barely half an hour had passed
by the time Cristiano Ronaldo took Bale’s
pass and fired home to cap a magnificent
counter-attack which summed up a
wonderful first half for the Spanish side.
Ronaldo's low free-kick finished the job in
the 90th minute just to rub salt into the
wounds but, if anything, Madrid could have
had many more. They completely outplayed
Bayern in every department. The Bavarians’
players had been busy patting each other on
the back for dominating possession in the
first leg at the Bernabeu last week when they
should have been wondering why on earth
they didn’t put more effort into snatching at
least one away goal.
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