adminBERLIN. — Real Madrid are used to making other teams suffer, but they withstood waves of pressure from Bayern Munich to win their Champions League soccer semi-final first leg on Wednesday night 2-1 and take a confident step towards reaching the final for a third year in a row.
At the Allianz Arena, Zinedine Zidane’s side had only 39.7 percent possession — their second lowest after the 3-0 defeat to Barcelona in December — while Bayern had 17 shots on goal to Madrid’s seven.
But in contrast to Bayern’s profligacy, the 12-times European champions made their few attempts count, hitting the target four times and scoring twice.
“We suffered a lot but the result is important,” said Real coach Zidane.
“You have to suffer, you cannot play in the Champions League and not suffer.
But we are happy because we knew how to suffer without the ball.”
Bayern defender Joshua Kimmich gave the home side the lead with the help of unconvincing goalkeeping from Madrid’s Keylor Navas and Franck Ribery missed a chance to double the lead before Marcelo equalised just before halftime.
Substitute Marco Asensio pulled Madrid in front early in the second half by starting and finishing a sweeping counter-attack.
“The game had the circumstances that we went behind and unconsciously we sat back a bit and suffered a little and they obviously wanted to go all out and try to win the game,” Real captain Sergio Ramos said. — Reuters.
Online Reporter