The first two semi-finalists in the Champions League have been confirmed after an amazing ten goals were scored. At 90-mins, Malaga were going to progress with an away win over Borussia Dortmund. But by 93-mins the Germans were celebrating a 3-2 victory that sees them make it in to the last four for the first time in 15-years. Real Madrid needed that three goal lead from the Bernabeu in order to see off a resilient Galatasaray 5-3 on aggregate.
Dortmund were the strong favourites to make it in to the semi-finals after a goalless first leg in Spain. The start was a slow one but Robert Lewandowski managed to get through, only to see his lobbed effort go over the bar just after 15-minutes.
Malaga's first real attack came on 25-minutes when Julio Baptista's header on ended up falling back to him. A quick interchange between Joaquin and Isco saw Joaquin take the ball to the edge the box and fire in to the bottom corner, giving Malaga the lead and, more importantly, the away goal. It was Joaquin's third of the tournament.
But Malaga couldn't hold on to the lead to half-time as Dortmund came back. Marco Reus' clever flick back in to the path of Lewandowski and the Pole take it around Willy Caballero before slotting it home five minutes before half-time, his sixth of the tournament. As it stood Malaga would still go through and they almost re-took the lead right before the whistle when Duda had a free header from a free-kick but it was easily saved by Roman Weidenfeller.
Lewandowski forced another save from Caballero early in the second half but Malaga again went close to taking the lead when Joaquin's header was smartly parried by Weidenfeller. The German keeper was again called in to action from Jeremy Toulalan's long range effort which was again punched away. Reus came closest to Dortmund taking the lead but his short range shot was somehow saved by the leg of Caballero. That same leg was then used to stop Mario Gotze from scoring after the German was exquisitely put through by Ilkay Gundogan.
With eight minutes to play, Malaga would retake the lead when Julio Baptista was played through one-on-one. The Brazilian then laid the ball across for Eliseu, who looked to be offside, to stroke home. But Dortmund fought back and when Felipe Santana's low cross was parried back to Reus to roll home on 91-minutes, the game was flung wide open.
A minute later, Reus was back in the box and this time smashing the ball across the six yard area. Santana's first effort ended up coming back to the keeper before Julian Schieber slid the ball back to Santana to poke in to the net, dramatically sending Malaga out and keeping their unbeaten status alive. However, there is controversy as Santana was ahead of Caballero when Schieber poked the ball back to him. So as there was only one defender between Santana and the goal, Santana was offside which was perhaps karma on Eliseu's part.
Galatasaray had it all to do in their second leg. They needed to somehow overturn a 3-0 deficit and do it against Real Madrid. The task of getting four goals without conceding, three to force extra time, and without Burak Yilmaz was quickly extended to five when Cristiano Ronaldo scored an away goal for Madrid after just seven minutes; the Portuguese tapping in Sami Khedira's low ball across the six yard box.
Real Madrid looked like scoring the second goal and only Fernando Muslera stopped Angel Di Maria curling an effort in to the net with the outside of his foot. Diego Lopez's first save of the net wasn't a particularly difficult one to make from a Wesley Sneijder shot from the edge of the box. But it was the beginning for Galatasaray to get in to the match.
Ronaldo should have made it 2-0 early in the second half when Angel Di Maria played him through on the six yard box. Ronaldo took a sloppy touch before then somehow scuffing it wide. The comeback then began 12-minutes in to the half when Sneijder's low ball across the box was smashed home by Emmanuel Eboue on the edge of the area with a momentous shot, a real way to score your first goal for Galatasaray.
Sneijder should have given the hosts the lead soon after but the Dutchman rolled his shot from ten yards hopelessly wide. There were calls for a penalty when Didier Drogba went down under a Pepe challenge, but the referee wasn't forthcoming. Sneijder then redeemed himself on 71-minutes, finishing after a great touch to put him through on goal. That became 3-1 just a minute later when Nordin Amrabat's ball was expertly flicked home by Drogba, giving Galatasaray the chance to dream and now just two goals away from a shock place in the semi-finals.
That third goal seemed to wake Madrid back up and Ronaldo went close to ending the tie, but his lobbed effort went just over bar. But time was running out for Galatasaray despite getting an injury time gift in the form of Alvaro Arbeloa getting himself sent off. The Spaniard got booked for a foul before then receiving a second yellow seconds later for dissent. But the last word came from, who else, Ronaldo by tapping in Karim Benzema's pull back for his 11th goal of the tournament, in ten matches.
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