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French Striker Scores Only Goal As Madrid Beat Bayern

 

Karim Benzema gave Real Madrid a slender advantage in the battle to reach the Champions League final as Pep Guardiola suffered defeat at the Bernabeu for the first time.

The Bayern boss had a tremendous record at this famous stadium while at the helm at Barcelona.

But in this semi-final first leg, his Bayern side could not break down Real’s resistance after the Spanish side had taken an early lead.

Although it did take a fabulous point-blank save from Real keeper Iker Casillas to deny Mario Gotze a late equaliser.

Guardiola may have a had a fine record here but Bayern had lost on their past five visits to the Bernabeu in the Champions League.

That included the 2010 final played there against Inter Milan.

And after dominating large parts of the match last night it was beginning to feel more like a jinx than a statistic.

Benzema scored the only goal of the match, very much against the run of play.

Bayern’s dangerman Arjen Robben had fired a warning shot with a vicious half-volley that curled the wrong way past the post as the German side bossed the early exchanges.

But their early enthusiasm was deflated by sucker punch in the 19th minute when Cristiano Ronaldo, back after four matches out with knee and hamstring injuries, combined with Fabio Coentrao on a quick counter-attack.

The full-back’s hard, low ball across the six-yard line gave Benzema a simple tap-in to open the scoring and the French striker finished the job.

Ronaldo, the competition’s top scorer with 14 goals and needing one more to set a new record for a single season, was presented with similar opportunity seven minutes later but scooped a bobbling ball over the bar.

That allowed Bayern to settle, but an equaliser proved out of reach.