Madrid Crash Out of UEFA Champions League
March 11th, 2010
Real Madrid’s European journey came to an end last night at the hands of Olympique Lyon, their sixth consecutive elimination in the knockout stages of the Champions League. The defeat comes despite the multimillion euro investment that the club’s president, Florentino Perez, made before the start of the season, when he bought a total of seven international players to the club, including the record breaking signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Specifically, Real Madrid paid out a total of 255 million euros for players such as Ronaldo, who cost the club 96 million euros alone, ex world player of the year, Kaka , Frenchman Karim Benzema and Spanish internationals Xabi Alonso, Raul Albiol, Álvaro Arbeloa and Esteban Granero.
After the euphoria of their last match in ‘La Liga’ against Seville, which saw Pellegrini’s team overturn a 2 goal deficit with just 30 minutes to play, winning 3-2, the Real Madrid players were full of confidence for the European fixture. With the game played at home and Madrid having 90 minutes to recover from their first leg 1-0 defeat, expectations were high. But, in the end, Real Madrid could not overcome a feisty French side who held them to a 1-1 draw on the night and meant Madrid lost 2-1 on aggregate.
Madrid’s goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, had this week said that the team had an obligation “to win a championship” this season, as they have a “more balanced” team and needed to restore their European successes of the past, “at least by making the semi-finals of the Champions League.” However, last night’s defeat means a sixth straight failure to make it into the quarter finals, with the loss against Lyon joining similar losses against Juventus, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Roma and Liverpool in the past 5 seasons.
To add insult to injury, the venue for the final of this year’s Champions league final will be Real Madrid’s own stadium, the Bernabeu. But, the world’s most famous and most expensive team, will have to wait until next season before having another opportunity to play in Europe’s top club competition.
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