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20.01.2011 » At. Madrid 0-1 Real Madrid. Ronaldo powerfull shot gives another win.
Real Madrid marched through to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey after seeing off Atletico Madrid 1-0 at the Vicente Calderon. The visitors were leading 3-1 lead from the first leg and grabbed themselves a tie-turning away goal through Cristiano Ronaldo great goal in the first-half.
On a match with lots of hard tackles, it was no surprise to see Jose Antonio Reyes coming off, through injury and to further weaken an attacking line already missing Sergio Aguero. The hosts lifted themselves for the second-half but couldn't find a way past Real Madrid goalkeeper, Iker Casillas.
The second-leg of the Copa del Rey derby began at aferocious pace, with both sides running at the defences with Atletico brought to a stop on numerous occasions by the offside flag. However, the hosts started to settle into the game depriving Jose Mourinho's men of the ball in dangerous territory.
The early tempo evaporated as Real Madrid started to dominate proceedings, at least in terms of possession, but their eagerness to retain the ball on the ground almost proved costly with 14 minutes on the clock.
A back-pass to Casillas was quickly closed down by Reyes and the "Blancos" goalkeeper blasted his clearance off the winger, but was fortunate to see the ball spin away from goal and the defence eventually recovered.
Real Madrid got the all important away goal in the 23rd minute as Xabi Alonso played a delightful chipped pass wide to Sergio Ramos who was in space. The right-back looked up and hit a low cross into the area which dropped kindly to Cristiano Ronaldo and the portuguese striker made no mistake with a powerful effort to make it 1-0 and almost assure that Real Madrid would go through.
Things got immediately worse for Atletico as they were forced to replace Reyes, the winger unable to run-off a knock and Diego Costa came on. Atletico came a whisker away from an equaliser just before the half-hour mark. Diego Costa skipped round Arbeloa with ease, but drilled his cross right through the area with Diego Forlan unable to stretch to turn it in. Quick thinking by Diego Forlan then found Diego Costa's bending run to send the forward clean on goal but the official's flag quickly went up, and wrongly in this case for Atleti.
A moment of magic from Cristiano Ronaldo to find Angel Di Maria with a backheel in the box should have resulted in a second for "los Blancos", but the winger tried to turn inside Juan Valera and the right-back got a block in to allow the ball to run to David De Gea.
With this win, Real Madrid gets to the Copa del Rey semi-finals and will face Sevilla in a 2 legs round. In the other semi-final, Barcelona and Almeria will also fight for a place in the final.
Sources: ronaldo7.net/goal.com
