This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Fairy tales rarely happen in the world of soccer and you fully expected Jose Mourinho’s evil white empirical charges of the Santiago Bernabeu to somehow come out on top in last night’s Champions League semi-final second leg.
Even though “the Special One” wasn’t in the dugout to see his sides 1-1 draw and 3-1 aggregate loss, his brutes still managed almost three times as many fouls as their opponents but they will definitely feel a little hard done by. If the referee had given what looked like a perfectly good Gonzalo Higuain a goal just before the break. Had that gone in, it would gave been a different tie. Alas the officiating team got it wrong. After the first leg antics you can hardly blame them.
Graham Sharpe from William Hill also thought that it might have made a difference, and commented, “Had Madrid scored their goal when the game was goalless then an upset may have been a possibility, but it never really looked viable.”
As it was, Pedro’s second half goal gave Barcelona a 1-0 lead in the tie and despite Marcelo’s leveller, Madrid couldn’t overhaul the home side’s lead as they find themselves in a second final in two years.
“Barca are looking virtually unbeatable at the moment and they could dominate the competition for the next few season’s,” Sharpe added of Barcelona’s chances.
Now they await the winner of Manchester United’s tie with Schalke that will likely give them a repeat of 2009’s final with the English side.
