Wolfsburg\u2019s first UEFA Champions League knockout campaign could yet extend into the semi-finals after first-half goals from Ricardo Rodriguez and Maximilian Arnold earned a memorable victory against Real Madrid in the quarter-final first leg.<\/p>\n
Zin\u00e9dine Zidane\u2019s Madrid were on a six-game winning run and duly began in confident mood, Cristiano Ronaldo having an effort chalked out for offside before Karim Benzema burst through in the 14th minute. Goalkeeper Diego Benaglio\u2019s outstretched boot came to Wolfsburg\u2019s rescue, Gareth Bale slicing the rebound wide.<\/p>\n
The home side made the most of the let-off.<\/p>\n
Eighteen minutes in, Andr\u00e9 Sch\u00fcrrle was felled by Danilo and Rodriguez stepped up to convert the penalty, ending Keylor Navas\u2019s 738-minute run without conceding in the UEFA Champions League.<\/p>\n
With his team behind for the first time in this season\u2019s competition, the Madrid keeper was beaten again seven minutes later.<\/p>\n
Julian Draxler found Bruno Henrique on the right and Arnold got ahead of Sergio Ramos to side-foot in at the near post, putting Wolfsburg well on the way to making it five wins from five European home matches this term.<\/p>\n
Benzema headed wide as a stunned Madrid sought a response, Benaglio dealing smartly with a subsequent Toni Kroos effort. Madrid\u2019s hopes were further knocked when Benzema limped off before the interval, and they continued to struggle to create clear openings. Indeed, Wolfsburg might have made it three as they broke out following a brief flurry of Madrid pressure, Henrique leading the counterattack.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian found Sch\u00fcrrle on the right with only Navas to beat; the shot flashed over. Madrid came again and Isco cleverly released Ronaldo with the outside of his right foot; the Portuguese seemed certain to add to his 13 goals in this season\u2019s tournament, only for Benaglio to intervene.<\/p>\n
At the other end, Navas plunged to his left to repel Max Kruse\u2019s attempt to cause even more damage to the Merengues, but Wolfsburg will travel to Spain full of hope.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: UEFA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wolfsburg\u2019s first UEFA Champions League knockout campaign could yet extend into the semi-finals after first-half goals from Ricardo Rodriguez and Maximilian Arnold earned a memorable victory against Real Madrid in the quarter-final first leg. Zin\u00e9dine Zidane\u2019s Madrid were on a six-game winning run and duly began in confident mood, Cristiano Ronaldo having an effort chalked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":204981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}