Madrid defies death head-on to reach the Champions League semi-finals

• Narration and statistics This is how we live the game

Madrid

not Calvinist, it is medieval.

He calculates worse than he attacks, even if he is without forces, without centrals, possessing a faith that does not find equals.

Their rivals can be better with the ball on the grass, and

were at the Bernabéu, but not when they drive it into the gorge.

Until he was in that place, face to face with death, he did not find proof of his life in a

shipment that was a pass to hope.

The extension followed the lines of his idiosyncrasy until

's goal , as if the whites were reviewing the imaginary calligraphy: re-mon-ta-da.

This is how Madrid wins, the champion of lost causes.

[Narration and stats: 2-3]

The other champion more than restored his honor at the Bernabéu.

can raise his head, as much as

did , a titan, even if he is not in the semifinals that Madrid will play.

He did everything he had to do, better than Madrid, until he had to play with intangibles that, for reasons beyond any analysis, belong to Madrid, no matter who plays, whoever directs it.

It is not enough to dominate it, as PSG did or, this time, Chelsea.

Either you crush it or you die.

He had it on the canvas.

He stand up.

If Chelsea achieved anything, it was winning the first emotional match: the first goal.

At the juncture in which the clash started, it was key for those who were at the foot of an eight-thousander of football, for the result, for the rival and for the stage.

The Bernabéu stands can be like the west face of Everest.

The goal, in the first quarter of an hour, put Chelsea back together after their fall at Stamford Bridge, which allowed Madrid to crown their excellent away act with a win that anyone wants, but that generates uncertainties about how to face the second leg.

Although it may seem incomprehensible, it is in this way for a team that is better activated in the face of challenges.

Your audience, too.

At the start, however, he tried not to get caught up in speculation, but the goal against made it a necessity.

Going out into the open, with so much time ahead of you, was exposing yourself too much.

If she had started out with high blood pressure, then she took a step back.

She entered her cave and waited for the counterattack.

In London she had worked for him, but now it meant playing with the clock and the rosary.

She prayed a lot, a lot.

The goal showed what the ball said very soon, and that is that in the midfield Tuchel's team had won the hand of Ancelotti's, with superiority thanks to the risk of leaving only Rüdiger behind in transitions and incorporating Marcos Alonso , who ate his band.

When the Chelsea players reached the balcony of the area, the combinations were multiple.

On a poor measurement by Alaba off him, Mount found the hall and benefited from a rebound off Werner.

The definition was superclass.

The tie was still on Madrid's side, but emotions had changed sides.

Courtois slowed down the goal kicks in search of a therapeutic rest, but the return confirmed the trend with another goal, this time after five minutes, which leveled the tie.

Rüdiger, a giant, holed out what he had already tried.

The tie was even.

Had to go back.

Madrid was back.

If until then Mendy had barely seen a ball from Benzema go over the crossbar, he suddenly had to stretch to get a ball from Kroos.

The risk was the adrenaline of the team and the stadium, which held its breath when Marcos Alonso drilled Courtois's goal and the VAR took a few seconds.

The ball had touched slightly and involuntarily in his hand before the shot and that, with the current rule, is annulled.

Again the air, life.

It was the first moment in which Madrid won emotionally, whether or not on merit.

Then Benzema headed the crossbar, damn crossbar.

The vibrations were already different, also the impulses, but not the owner of the game, always Chelsea.

Werner, a wasp in the box, cleared defenses like ski gates until his ball wailed into the goal.

They had stepped on Everest.

The unknown is whether they would withstand the wind.

It would soon be clear.

Do not.

Modric hit the center with the outside that found Rodrygo to reach extra time.

The Croatian took his team to extra time on a stretcher, without Nacho, with Carvajal as central defender, at the mercy of an attack by wolves.

Then Courtois emerged so that Vinicius and Benzema could meet in life, which is the Champions of Madrid.

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