TheCable

Real Madrid are now 90 minutes away from clinching their desperately-sought La Decima, after mauling defending champions, Bayern Munich, 4-0 in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League semi-final at the Allianz Arena.

Wednesday evening’s four unanswered goals mean that Madrid qualify for the final 5-nil on aggregate, while Bayern flunk the chance to break the jinx of the failure of a Champions League winner to successfully defend the title.

Sergio Ramos drove Madrid ahead with a 16th-minute header off a Luka Modric corner kick, before scoring again with his head in the 20th minute.

World Player of the Year, Cristiano Ronaldo broke archrival Lionel Messi’s record for number of strikes in a Champions League campaign, by scoring his 15th goal of the UCL season in the 34th minute.

With Bayern already consigned to an unexpectedly heavy defeat, Ronaldo fired a low free kick on the dot of full time — the opposing defenders jumped to prevent him from curling over their heads — and a hapless Manuel Neuer could only watch as the ball sped into the net.

The Spanish giants, though, will be ruing the loss of midfield pass master, Xabi Alonso to a second yellow card of the tie that rules him out of the final against either Chelsea or Atletico Madrid next month.

Bayern captain, Philipp Lahm, subsequently spoke of his disappointment at losing out so tamely.

“The disappointment is huge. We wanted it a lot, but then we were 2-0 down after 20 minutes, thanks to two set pieces,” he said at the post-match conference.

“This is incredibly bitter and disappointing… We did not play well tactically; we had an open game way too early. While we controlled the first leg, we gave them an end-to-end game today. That’s not our way of playing.”