Dipo OlowookereBy Dipo Olowookere
Real Madrid endured a scare from Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions’ League second match played on Tuesday night in Madrid.
The present league leaders in Spain won their first leg 2-1 in German last Wednesday and were hoping to have an easy ride over their guests today.
However, the Carlos Ancelotti’s men dragged the match to an extra time after the score-line was 2-1 in favour of Bayern at the end of 90 minutes with a man down, Arturo Vidal, who was shown a second yellow 6 minutes from normal time.
Bayern had gone ahead in the match with a goal scored in the 53rd minute by Robert Lewandowski, but Cristiano Ronaldo cancelled that out in the 76th minute.
However, this was short-lived as Sergio Ramos’ own goal two minutes later restored the visitor’s lead, taking the match to an extra 120 minutes to decide who goes through to the semi-final.
At the resumption of the game in the extra time, Cristiano Ronaldo struck again at the stoppage time of the first half.
But 5 minutes after resuming for the second stanza, the Portuguese completed his hat-trick, taking the goal tally to 3-2, before Marco Asensio scored 8 minutes from time to wrap the game at 4-2, progressing to the next round on 6-3 aggregate.
Real Madrid is edging closer to winning the title for the second time in a row, a feat yet to be achieved by any club since the competition was renamed the UEFA Champions’ League.
