<\/p>\n
Karim Benzema<\/strong><\/p>\n Karim Benzema said Real Madrid \u201cwill do something magical\u201d to reach the Champions League final, after scoring twice in a thrilling 4-3 defeat to Manchester City in Tuesday\u2019s semifinal first leg.<\/p>\n A breathless start at the Etihad stadium saw Kevin De Bruyne and Gabriel Jesus put a dominant City 2-0 up inside 11 minutes, before Benzema gave Madrid hope with a goal before halftime.<\/p>\n Phil Foden restored City\u2019s two-goal lead, Vinicius Junior scored two minutes later, and Bernardo Silva made it 4-2, before Benzema dispatched an 82nd minute \u2018Panenka\u2019 penalty to keep the tie alive ahead of the second leg at the Santiago Bernabeu on May 4.<\/p>\n \u201cA defeat is never good,\u201d Benzema told Movistar.<\/em> \u201cThe most important thing is we never gave up until the end. Now we have to go to the Bernabeu. We\u2019ll need the fans like never before. We\u2019ll do something magical, which is to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Madrid\u2019s Bernabeu stadium has already hosted two dramatic games in these Champions League knockout stages. They overturned a 1-0 first leg loss at Paris Saint-Germain in the round-of-16, Benzema scoring a hat-trick in a 3-1 home win.<\/p>\n An extra-time winner from Benzema was required to eliminate Chelsea 5-4 on aggregate in their quarterfinal second leg.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s brace means the France forward has now scored 14 Champions League goals this season.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can you say about Karim Benzema?\u201d teammate Vinicius Junior said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great player, he\u2019s my brother. Let\u2019s hope he can end the season winning LaLiga, winning the Champions League and finish up with the Ballon d\u2019Or.\u201d<\/p>\n Benzema scored his penalty against City after seeing two spot kicks saved in his previous game, a 3-1 LaLiga win at Osasuna on April 20.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you never take a penalty, you\u2019ll never miss a penalty,\u201d Benzema said. \u201cI have a lot of self-confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe never thought about changing who\u2019d take the penalties,\u201d Coach Carlo Ancelotti added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have full confidence [in him]. They were expecting him to put it to the right, and he put it down the middle. We have a lot of confidence, and hope [for the second leg], with the magic of the Bernabeu.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Karim Benzema Karim Benzema said Real Madrid \u201cwill do something magical\u201d to reach the Champions League final, after scoring twice in a thrilling 4-3 defeat to Manchester City in Tuesday\u2019s semifinal first leg. A breathless start at the Etihad stadium saw Kevin De Bruyne and Gabriel Jesus put a dominant City 2-0 up inside 11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1069611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[3286],"class_list":["post-1069609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-magical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1069609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1069609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1069609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1069609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}