Real Madrid Knocked Out Of The Champions League By Ajax

Ajax overturned a first leg home defeat in the Champions League against holders Real Madrid to go through to the quarter finals after a historic win in the Bernabeu.

For the past three years Real Madrid have looked almost unbeatable in the Champions League as they won Europe's premier club competition for the 11th, 12th and 13th times in their history.

The league season hasn't gone to plan this season for Los Blancos so their number one aim has once again to be to defend their title as Europe's best.

They faced Ajax in the last 16 and won 2-1 away from home in the first leg. With the two goals in Amsterdam they started as huge favourites on Tuesday night.

Raphael Varane hit the bar early for Santiago Solari's team but just minutes later Hakim Ziyech made things interesting by opening the scoring for the visitors.

Suddenly the 1996 winners were all over their hosts and, following some unreal skill from Dusan Tadic, David Neres put them 2-0 up on the night and ahead on aggregate.

Real had to make two substitutions in the first half with Gareth Bale and Marco Asensio replacing Lucas Vazquez and Vinicius Junior, both through injury.

But the changes made no difference to the pattern of the game as Ajax continued to come forward and were rewarded as Tadic scored himself just past the hour mark.

The goal was controversial as the ball seemed to go off the pitch early in the move but VAR proved inconclusive and Ajax had revenge from their disallowed goal in the first leg.

At 3-0 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate Real needed three goals in less than half an hour but on the 70th minute mark Asensio pulled one back and there was hope.

Ajax though weren't in the mood to let the Spaniards back in the game and within two minutes they had put the gap back to two goals as Thibaut Courtois was in a dreadful position as Lasse Schone's free kick floated over his head and into the goal.

Real did have chances throughout the second half but couldn't find the killer pass or finish to get back into the game and Ajax kept plugging away.

It was a historical comeback for the Dutch side and finally we'll see another name in the final, in Madrid, in May.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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