Real Madrid and Chelsea completed an amazing match tonight. The game would be an easy process to Spanish team. However (and like a lot of times) Madrid loves complicated. They went to extra-time and Karim Benzema gave one more time the ticket to Champions League semifinals.
Thomas Tuchel said after the first leg match that there were not any possibilities Chelsea could win Madrid and comeback the qualifying round at Bernabeu. The England team started the game with a lot of pressure and with good pass decisions during all the first half. The Militao´s absence was quiet noticeable. Also, some players like Havertz or Mount (with an amazing goal) had a good performance. On minute 15´ would arrive the first goal that would put emotion to this second leg match. The first half of Real Madrid was awful. Players like Kroos, Modric or Carvajal saw each other outmatched. Chelsea could score more goals but their mistakes and the big performance of Courtois gave another opportunity to the “kings of Europe”.
The second half would develop on the same terms. In addition, was worst for Madrid. At the beginning, Rudiger scored a head goal on a corner for “blues”. The controversy was that the corner of Chelsea used to score the second one, was not corner and the referee took a bad decision. Some minutes later, Marcos Alonso scored the third one and local team was totally devastated. But the destiny wanted to keep this qualifying round alive. The goal of Spanish defender was canceled due to a hand on the Real Madrid´s area. On minute 75´ would arrive the last goal for away team on this game. Werner completed the comeback with a goal that came from mistake of Mendy.
And in this moments is when Real Madrid shines. Luka Modric (MVP of the match) gave an amazing assist to Rodrygo (coming out from bench) to score the draw on this quarters finals. Finally, on the extra-time, Benzema showed up one more night with a head goal after a good play of his teammate Vinicius.
With this result Madrid advances to semifinals and they will face to face against Manchester City or Atletico. They have a relevant game this weekend against Sevilla to decide the Liga Santander. However, with this physical game and the extra-time will be a tough game for Ancelotti´s guys. Now Chelsea has to focus on the Champions places on Premier and play as well as they can.
Jorge Barbero
