MADRID, 7 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
This Wednesday, Real Madrid will try to seal their way to a new Champions League final, taking advantage of the fact that they are playing the second leg of the semi-finals against the German Bayern Munich at a Santiago Bernabéu where they are undefeated this season and which historically has not been given much well to his rival.
After last week’s 2-2 at the Allianz Arena in the Bavarian capital, it is now the Madrid team that will try to take advantage of its home status to win the ticket for the final on June 1 at Wembley.
This season, the Madrid fiefdom has been impregnable for none of the 22 teams that have visited it this season and only four have managed to draw, a result that, given the absence of the double value of away goals, could still be worth a Bayern to risk their luck on penalties.
In fact, the Bavarian team already achieved a pass to the Champions League final of the 2011-2012 season at the Bernabéu, then after seeing how Real Madrid equaled them 2-1 in Munich. That defeat was one more that the six-time European champion has suffered in this stadium, which has not been very good historically, with only two wins in its 13 visits.
Bayern tied in the first (1-1), in the first leg of the 1976 European Cup semi-finals and in the following two in the 1980s, both in return matches, they added 1-0 defeats, which did not prevent him from reaching the final, and 2-0, which meant elimination in the quarterfinals. Then, he did not return to the Bernabéu until the end of the 20th century, in 2000, when he did so twice, achieving one of his two victories, a clear 2-4 in the second group stage that was then in the competition. However, months later, they visited the Concha Espina ‘coliseum’ again, then in the first leg of the semifinals, and lost 2-0.
The following year, a goal from Elber gave them their second victory at the merengue venue, in the first leg of the semifinals, and they have not won there since May 1, 2001, with 2-0 defeats, and elimination, in the second leg of the quarterfinals of the following season, 1-0 and elimination, in the second leg of the 2003-2004 round of 16, 3-2 in the first leg of the 2006-2007 round of 16, the aforementioned 2-1 in the second leg of the 2011-2012 semifinals, 1-0 in the first leg of the 2013-2014 semifinals, 4-2 in the second leg of the 2016-2017 quarterfinals, although then they forced extra time after equaling the 1-2 defeat of the Allianz, and the 2-2 and elimination in the second leg of the 2017-2018 semifinals.
Now, Bayern will try, at least, not to fall at the Bernabéu, something that only Rayo Vallecano has achieved this season, the only one that has left without conceding, Atlético de Madrid, who tied (1-1) in added time, their compatriots from the German RB Leipzig (1-1) and Manchester City (3-3).
His current coach, Thomas Tuchel, has done better, who does know what it means to win in this stadium, since he was the last to do so in the highest continental competition, in the 2021-2022 season when he won 2-3 with Chelsea English in the second leg of the quarterfinals, although it did not help them qualify after 1-3 in the first leg.
The German has never lost at home with the Madrid team, with whom he tied 2-2 in the 2016-2017 group stage when he led Borussia Dortmund and 1-1 with the English team in the first leg of the 2020-2021 semifinals. , then in a match held at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium.
TWELFTH ROUND OF THE EUROPEAN CUP SEMIFINAL AT THE BERNABÉU
Of the 33 semi-finals that the 14-time European champion has played so far in the highest continental competition, there is the circumstance that only in twelve, counting this Wednesday’s, did they have the return match in their stadium, the last three with happy ending.
After winning the first five editions, Real Madrid did not play a semi-final second leg in its stadium until the 63-64 season when it did so against Swiss team Zurich, whom it beat 6-0 to seal its place in the final, lost to Inter. Italian (3-1) and after having already won the first leg (1-2).
On the other hand, the Bernabéu was not decisive in the 67-68 and 72-73 campaigns in which Manchester United and Ajax were the ones who celebrated their place in the final on the pitch. The English team asserted the 1-0 in the first leg with a 3-3 and the Dutch team dominated the tie in both games, winning in the capital by 0-1.
The Madrid team did not have another round of the semi-finals of the European Cup in front of their fans until 1986-1987, where they could only win 1-0 against a Bayern team that had overwhelmed them (4-0) at the Olympic Stadium. The next one was a very special one against FC Barcelona in the 2001-2002 campaign. The one-goal draw was enough for Vicente del Bosque’s team, who had won at the Camp Nou 0-2.
But from there, three almost consecutive ‘black’ nights. The first, and very painful, was the one mentioned against Bayern in 2011-2012, with the elimination after a disastrous penalty shootout with the failures of Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo and Sergio Ramos, and the second against the German Borussia Dortmund, against the that his attempt to overcome the tough 4-1 deficit in the first leg did not go well, although he brushed it with two late goals (2-0). The third was in 2014-2015 when they were defending their title and had to come back to play in the final for the second consecutive year against Juventus, who arrived at the Bernabéu with a 2-1 advantage and made the night bitter with the decisive 1-1 goal scored. at that time a former madridista Álvaro Morata.
However, Real Madrid once again regained strength in front of their fans in their last three attempts, all with quite a bit of emotion. In the 2015-2016 semi-finals, an own goal gave them a place in the final in their fiefdom against the English Manchester City after the 0-0 in the first match, and in the 2017-2018 they ended up asking for the hour against Bayern, who They tied at two and were one goal away from passing after the 1-2 draw in Munich.
The last, and most remembered, was the 2021-2022 epic against City, with the two goals from Brazilian striker Rodrygo Goes that agonizingly overcame Ryad Mahrez’s goal to equalize the tie and achieve the ticket to the ‘Fourteenth’ in extra time.