Fortune Favours The Lucky
The football season 2015/16 ended last night with Real Madrid's win in the UEFA Champions League, beating city rivals 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Real captain Sergio Ramos haunted the Atleti fans again by scoring the opening goal. Right after the 2nd half kicked off, Atleti got a penalty kick. Later, Antoine Griezmann had the chance but the ball hit the post and La Rojiblancos missed a crucial chance.
Atleti’s coach Diego Simeone made a very important and effective substitution which was the turning point of the game as he brought in the Belgian player, Yannick Carrasco, and after this substitution Atleti dominated the game and later went on scoring the equaliser in the 79th minute.
GAME ON!!! Now, Atleti were hunting for the 2nd goal and had an advanced of the two left substitutions whereas Real Madrid had used all three.
After the ninety minutes, even the extra time wasn’t enough to decide the winner and the match went on to the penalties. The defining moment of the match came when Atleti’s Juanfran missed his penalty and got everyone shocked. Guess who came upon to score the final kick for Real Madrid? Cristiano Ronaldo! He came, he saw and scored! It’s over! Real Madrid have won the Champions league for a record 11th time!
The atmosphere at Milan was fixed. Sadness and happiness; it hurt me to see one of my favourite player Fernando Torres crying...
Gareth Bale and Sergio Ramos were awarded ‘The Man of The Match’ titles.
Now, let’s rewind a little and see the ‘Route To Milan’. Atletico, in the Round of 16 faced Dutch Champions PSV, 2 legs of 90 mins wasn’t enough to decide the winner and Atleti won 8-7 on penalties. On the other hand, Real faced Italian team Roma who were having a rather average season, Real beated them 4-0 on aggregated, Quarter finals came and Atleti faced the defending champions and current Spanish champions Barcelona, after losing the controversial first leg 2-1. Atleti won the 2nd leg 2-0 and went on to the semi's. Real faced Wolfsburg who were not so great this time but the ‘Wolves’ won 2-0 against Madrid thinking of having the upper hand in the 2nd leg, remember that 90 mins at Bernanbeu are very long, a hattrick from Cristiano Ronaldo was enough to send Real into the semi-finals, the draws were made, Atleti faced the mighty German Champions Bayern Munich and Real faced Manchester City, a team which played their 1st ever semifinal and was battling for the 4th place in the EPL. The 1st leg at Calderon Saul scored a marvellous solo run goal for the 1-0 victory and lost with 2-1 at Allianz Arena In Munich, keeper Jan Oblak saved Thomas Muller’s penalty and Atleti went on with the goals. Now, on the other side 0-0 at Etihad. No Ronaldo, at Madrid a deflected own-goal from Fernando (cross from Gareth Bale) was the only goal of the game and Real were in the finals and again Madrid Derby.
It was heart breaking to see Simeone’s soldier to lose as such, they beat 2 of the best teams in the world to reach so far and with such limited funds. No Hate on Madrid, Zinedine Zidane really improved Madrid from Rafa Benitez’s nightmare spell and he became the 7th person to win UCL both as a coach and player.
The Football Fiesta’s isn’t over peeps, the Euros in France , Copa America in The US and Olympic football in Brazil are coming up to hold up our breaths this summer! Stay tunes!
~Mahin Malhotra
No comments:
Post a Comment