Wednesday 3 April 2013

Dortmund Held In Spain, Three & Easy For Madrid

Real Madrid look likely to be in the semi-finals after beating Galatasaray 3-0 in the Bernabeu. 533km away, Malaga will have it all to do when they travel to Germany after a goalless draw in the La Rosaleda. The only positive Malaga do have is that Dortmund failed to score an away goal which could potentially work in their favour if the get a goal in the Westfalenstadion.

It was perhaps more down to Dortmund missing their chances rather than Malaga holding them off but it won't be until the second leg where we'll find out if Dortmund will rue the misses. Mario Gotze was the first to miss a great chance after Robert Lewandowski put him through and then again after Ilkay Gundogan played the pass in to him.

The ball was in the net on 24-minutes when Kevin Grosskreutz tapped it home, but Lewandowski had been in an offside position during the move. Marco Reus also had a shot saved before Malaga finally had a five minute spell just before half time. Roman Weidenfeller did drop a Joaquin cross before Spaniard played in a corner which was met by Vitorino Antunes. Weidenfeller managed to parry the header away before Jeremy Toulalan's rebound was cleared off the line by Gotze.

Sebastian Kehl had an opportunity to put Dortmund ahead just before the whistle but it was expertly saved by Willy Caballero. Perhaps Dortmund's best chance of the match came just two minutes in to the second half but Lewandowski mis-kicked his effort from a deflected Gotze pull back before the young German missed another chance, pulling his shot just wide.

Malaga's best opportunity in the second half came to Isco but his shot was again parried by Weidenfeller before once again preventing Toulalan from scoring on the rebound. Despite not having an away goal, Dortmund should be the favourite in the second leg.

There's not a lot of doubt about who is going to win the tie in Turkey with Galatasaray needing to score three goals without conceding to force extra time. Jose Mourinho's record of never losing a Champions League quarter final looks set to continue and success began on nine minutes when Mesut Ozil played Cristiano Ronaldo through, the Portuguese exquisitely chipped Fernando Muslera to score his ninth goal of the competition.

Galatasaray weren't completely overturned by the Spanish giants but despite their attacking intent, Wesley Sneijder, Didier Drogba nor Burak Yilmaz really tested Diego Lopez. Drogba did produce a parry from the deputy keeper and Emmanuel Eboue ended smashing his effort straight at him.

Real Madrid made it 2-0 just before the half hour mark when Michael Essien's cross wasn't dealt with as it fell to Karim Benzema. The Frenchman had no difficulty in controlling the ball before putting in to the back of the net before Eboue or Semih Kaya realised what had happened.

Galatasaray went in to damage limitation mode for the second half by taking Sneijder off. The tactic did seem  to work defensively, but their attacking nature dropped immensely. The result, for the first leg at least, was sealed on 73-minutes when Xabi Alonso's free-kick was headed home by Gonzalo Higuain.

The Turkish side did have a great shout for a penalty late on when Sergio Ramos looked to have fouled Yilmaz, but the striker was given a yellow card for simulation which was perhaps a little harsh. With the tie all but sewn up, Ramos later looked to get himself purposely booked in injury time for kicking the ball away. This means he'll miss the second leg but now there's no possibility of missing the first leg of the semi-final.            

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