Real Madrid 1 - 4 Ajax : 3 Talking points
Real Madrid hosted Ajax for the second leg of their UEFA Champions League Round of 16 fixture on 5th March 2019. Los Blancos entered the game with a slight advantage after recording a narrow 2-1 victory over the Eredivisie side during the first leg of the encounter - courtesy of goals from Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio. It was a good result for the Spanish side with two crucial away goals.
Sergio Ramos admitted after the first leg that he deliberately earned a yellow card to get himself suspended for the second leg. His thoughts were that the second goal scored by Asensio in Amsterdam was enough for them to progress. How wrong is he now?
Ajax stunned the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium with a cruising 4-1 win over the current champions and dumped them out of the tournament. In the absence of Ramos, the defense put in a poor performance as Ajax attackers found a lot of space on numerous occasions.
Here are 3 talking points extracted from the game:
#1. Madrid’s European dominance hit a snag
The Spanish team started the tournament as one of the favorites, following their last 3 consecutive triumphs. Madrid has been able to become a semi-finalist in the last eight seasons, showing the world how good they are at the bigger stage. The club has won the tournament the most number of times, 13 in total.
After the departure of their ex-manager Zinedine Zidane and their talisman Cristiano Ronaldo, things have changed a lot at Santiago Bernabeu. The team has struggled in all competitions this season and the Champions league represented their only hope of winning silverware.
With the humiliating defeat in front of home crowd, their last hope has been dashed and after three years, the world will have a new champion at Atletico Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano stadium.