Cristiano Ronaldo proved Atletico Madrid\u2019s Champions League dream destroyer once more with a hat-trick as Real Madrid took a commanding 3-0 semi-final, first leg lead yesterday.
\nRonaldo extended his lead as the all-time top scorer in Madrid derby matches by taking his tally to 21 and put Real firmly on course to defend their title in the final in Cardiff on June 3.
\nThe Portuguese rewarded a bright Real start by heading home Casemiro\u2019s deflected cross after just 10 minutes.
\nRonaldo then smashed home from just inside the area and turned home Lucas Vazquez\u2019s cross in the final 20 minutes as Real continued their domination of Atletico having eliminated them in the Champions League for the past three seasons.
\nReal needed a stoppage time equaliser en route to winning the 2014 final, scored a late winner in the quarter-finals a year later and edged last season\u2019s final on a penalty shootout.
\nHowever, there was far more a gulf between the sides this time round.
\nThe home fans made sure to put Atletico in their place before kick-off with chants of \u201ckings of Europe\u201d and a \u201chow does it feel\u201d banner alongside a display of their 11 European Cups.
\nReal piled on the pain in the opening stages for the 4,000 visiting away fans and could have killed the tie in the opening half hour.
\nAtletico were handed a lucky escape on seven minutes when Jan Oblak parried Dani Carvajal\u2019s effort at the end of a careering run and the Slovenian recovered to also turn behind Karim Benzema\u2019s follow-up effort.
\nThere was no let off three minutes later, though, as Atletico failed to clear a corner and Casemiro\u2019s bouncing cross looped up for Ronaldo to power home a header.
\nOblak kept Atletico alive in the moments that followed with a brilliant save from Raphael Varane\u2019s header and more comfortable stop from Isco.
\nHowever, at the other end, Keylor Navas rescued Real from conceding a vital away goal when he got a touch on the ball as Kevin Gameiro tried to round him when clean through on goal.
\nThe majority of the efforts continued to rain down on Oblak\u2019s goal as Luka Modric drilled a shot from the edge of the box inches wide.
\nAnd Benzema then acrobatically turned a Ronaldo cross just over the bar.
\nAtletico enjoyed a better spell just before half-time, but all they had to show for it was Diego Godin\u2019s wayward volley after being picked out by Antoine Griezmann\u2019s free-kick.
\nReal suffered an injury blow right on half-time when Dani Carvajal pulled up with a muscle problem that looks set to keep him out of the second leg.
\nClear-cut chances were far harder to come by after half-time as Atletico toiled to create, whilst Real sat on their lead waiting for the chance to counter-attack.
\nHowever, once again in ties between these two, Real got the slice of luck to go with their extra quality.
\nThe ball rebounded up perfectly off the heels of Filipe Luis for Ronaldo to blast high past Oblak.
\nAnd Ronaldo completed his second hat-trick against Atletico this season four minutes from time when Lucas Vazquez\u2019s cutback picked out the four-time World Player of the Year to slot home from close range.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristiano Ronaldo proved Atletico Madrid\u2019s Champions League dream destroyer once more with a hat-trick as Real Madrid took a commanding 3-0 semi-final, first leg lead yesterday. Ronaldo extended his lead as the all-time top scorer in Madrid derby matches by taking his tally to 21 and put Real firmly on course to defend their title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/150891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}