Real Outlasts Dortmund Into Champions League Semis

Real Madrid held off a determined fightback by Borussia Dortmund to secure a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Real won the first leg 3-0 and should have sealed the tie, but Angel Di Maria’s early penalty was saved.

From then on, the hosts took control as Marco Reus rounded Iker Casillas and then rifled in from close range to put the hosts close to forcing extra-time.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan hit the post, but Real held on to progress.

The Spanish side were overwhelming favourites to progress before kick-off, but they were second best throughout to a superb Dortmund side at Signal Iduna Park.

With winger Cristiano Ronaldo injured and demoted to the bench, Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Angel Di Maria struggles to make an impression as the hosts dominated but failed to get the required third goal to force the tie into extra-time.

The Spanish giants have now reached a fourth successive appearance in the semi-finals of Europe’s top tier club football.

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti:

“We played a very slow game, with many errors and no confidence. After the penalty a bit of fear crept into the team.

“Every game is difficult at this stage and we saw that today. It was a night of struggling, of suffering but at the end we are just happy to have made it into the semis.”

“Cristiano Ronaldo was fine, we didn’t want to risk him, because of the intensity of the tie, and we didn’t have to.

“Hopefully he’s better soon and he is ready for the semi-final. It’s not a big problem because if it were, he wouldn’t have been on the bench. He has time to recover and could play on Saturday.”

Borussia Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp:

“You could make a video of this game and show it to the teams that lose a first leg 3-0.

“My players wanted to go through but we were missing that one goal we did not score in Madrid last week.

“The lads gave it everything they had and I have no idea how many kilometres they ran today.”

(Match Report Culled from the BBC)