Galatasaray vs. Real Madrid, 2013 UEFA Champions League: Gala miracle falls short

Ronaldo nearly made things even worse for the hosts shortly thereafter when he thumped a long-ranger into Muslera’s midriff, and although Galatasaray made a few forays forward it was abundantly clear that they weren’t going to drop five goals on the Madrid defence, who were by now treating the match as an extended training session. Di Maria nearly made it 2-0 after a stunning backheel from Ronaldo only to be denied by an outstretched arm from Muslera.

Just after the break, Ronaldo squandered a fine chance to make it 2-0 when di Maria played a pass similar to Khedira’s first-half assist only to see the goalscorer fail to dig the ball out from under his feet. Had Madrid not been 4-0 up at the time, they’d have been annoyed at the miss, because Emmanuel Eboue levelled the score on the night with a stupendous right-footed shot that went screaming past Lopez and straight into the top corner.

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Galatasaray will need something truly remarkable to progress to the next stage of the Champions League after suffering a 3-0 defeat in Madrid in the first leg.

To make matters worse for the Turks, they will also be without Burak Yilmaz, their top scorer, after he picked up a highly-controversial yellow card in that game for a supposed dive that appeared to in fact be a clear penalty. It was not the only moment of poor luck for Cim Bom in a game that they were far from overwhelmed in, but they will have to pick themselves up again if they hope to get a reasonable result tonight.