Madrid suffered but still went through and will now sense they can win the Champions League for the third time in a row
“My heart rate went up a bit but I tried to calm myself down, because I knew it would be decisive,” Cristiano Ronaldo said. All that and it came down to this: 180 minutes reduced to a single moment. A 3-0 victory for Real Madrid in Turin, 3-0 to Juventus in Madrid and then, in the 93rd and final minute, with 39 remaining seconds that would soon be considerably more, Lucas Vázquez went down, nudged by Medhi Benatia. So here they were, a semi-final waiting, everyone watching two men standing 12 yards apart at the north end of the Santiago Bernabéu. Well eventually. One shot but a long time to take it. Juventus surrounded the referee and Gigi Buffon was sent off.
“The referee had a rubbish bin where his heart should be,” Buffon said, while Vázquez insisted: “It’s a penalty, the centre-back arrives and bundles me over. But in a situation like that the protests are normal, it’s the last minute after a great game.” Ronaldo thought differently. “I don’t know why they were protesting but football’s like that,” he said. As he left the stadium, he and Buffon embraced. They had not seen each other when the moment came. Buffon walked, Wojciech Szczesny came on to replace him. All the while, Ronaldo waited.
Related: 'A savage and sadistic way to go out' – Italian press reacts to Real Madrid v Juventus
Related: ‘Referee has a rubbish bin where his heart should be,’ says Gianluigi Buffon
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