Sergio Ramos has his redemption, Cristiano Ronaldo has his goal record and Real Madrid are one win away from the long-awaited “Decima.”
Real Madrid carried out coach Carlo Ancelotti’s game plan to perfection and routed title holders Bayern Munich 4-0 on Tuesday to reach their first Champions League final in 12 years. Madrid will play either Chelsea or city rivals Atletico Madrid in the May 24 final in Lisbon.
Madrid, a 5-0 aggregate winner over Bayern, will be seeking a record 10th title – “La Decima” in Spanish.
“We played a perfect game in the first half, we defended very well and pressed very high,” Ancelotti said. “We used the space we had for counters, with some great passing.”
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Madrid had never won in Munich in 10 previous matches, losing nine of them. But this time, Ancelotti’s team put their stamp on the game early and struck with awesome efficiency – something the Italian coach had promised ahead of the match.
Madrid’s sweeping, fast counterattacks paced by Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Angel Di Maria, along with tenacious tackling when Bayern tried to come out of the hosts’ own half, were a huge problem for Bayern’s defence. However, the first two goals came from set pieces, as well as the last.
Ramos, who missed the crucial penalty when Madrid lost to Bayern at the same stage in 2012 in a shootout, scored those first two goals and Ronaldo added two more to break the Champions League season record with a tally of 16.
Ramos headed the first from a corner taken by Luka Modric in the 16th and nodded in the second four minutes later after a free kick from Angel Di Maria.
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“We prepared the set pieces and we used them to make things easy for us,” Ancelotti said. “We knew they defend with a zone, not man to man.”
Ronaldo made it 3-0 to Madrid in the 34th minute after a perfectly executed counterattack and completed the victory with a free kick in the 89th as he shattered Barcelona star Lionel Messi’s record of 14 goals in a season.
