CL - both Madrid teams through, Barça out

Madrid is a far happier place than Barcelona this week after the Champions League quarterfinals; Real and Atlético both through to the semis after wildly differing performances.

Real Madrid managed to luck their way through to the next phase of the competition after stuttering badly against Borussia Dortmund. The Yellow Wall was in fine voice inside the Westfalenstadion in spite of the torrential downpours which engulfed the area in the lead-up to kick-off then stopped pretty much as soon as the referee signalled the start of the match. It was as if God himself was the groundsman and was ready for the ref's whistle.

The Dortmund fans whistled every touch from a Real player, and roared their team on furiously whenever they broke towards goal. They'd already gotten the distinct impression that the referee was against them after he disregarded a clear foul by professional annoyance Pepe right on the edge of his own area, and they were even more sure of the fact when he awarded the Spanish side a dubious penalty for handball against Łukasz

Bowling shoes not so good for football

Piszczek. With no CR7 on the pitch to extend his European goals record, Ángel Di María stepped up in his bowling shoes, slipped embarrassingly, and sent the ball at a nice height to Roman Weidenfeller's left. The one-cap German stuck out an elbow and deflected the shot wide for a corner.

Real seemed almost suicidally blasé about the whole thing, attempting to keep the ball with short passes in tight areas with players unsuited to the game. The breakthrough eventually came after 24 minutes, a long ball from the back bewilderingly prompting Pepe to attempt a headed back-pass from fully 40 yards. Marco Reus read his intentions, nipped in and rounded Casillas before passing the ball into the net.

Los Blancos seemed not to learn their lesson, at one point attempting a series of one-twos between three players in their own half while surrounded by no fewer than six Dortmund players. Needless to say, this was not going to end well. On 37 minutes Asier Illarramendi, who all game had looked like a child who'd won a raffle to play on the pitch in place of a real player, sold Pepe awfully short with a misjudged pass. The superb Reus, whose parents should've really named Rolls when he was born on the evidence of this game, once more read the future quicker than anyone else and stole in to feed the ball to Robert Lewandowski. Although the Pole's shot was touched onto the post by San Iker, the ball rebounded straight to Reus, who made no mistake in hammering it home for 2-0.

Half time could not come quickly enough for the beleaguered Madrid, and when they emerged 15 minutes later Illarra had been replaced by Isco. More importantly, Bale had been moved across to right wing. The Welsh flyer had simply not been in the game during the opening 45, and within a couple of minutes proved why starting him on the left had been a mistake, worrying defenders and sending a couple of strikes at the chronically underworked Weidenfeller. Real Madrid looked as if Ancelotti had instructed them to play longer for the second half; a wise move Mr. Magoo could've told them was needed. Honestly, what's the point of having Bale and Di María out wide if you refuse to get the ball to them?? Although in the case of the Argentine, he would've probably fallen over if he had received it..

CR7 was cutting an increasingly agitated figure on the bench, at one point even having to be instructed to sit

CR7 vents on the bench

down by the fourth official. Back on the pitch, things continued in the same vein as the first half. Alonso was extremely lucky not to be given his marching orders after fouling a player on halfway. The referee strode towards him, for all the world looking like he was about to dispense a second yellow, but seemed to think again once he realised that he'd already booked to the former Liverpool man. In the end, he gave nothing, curiously. For the German side, Marco Reus was far and away the best player on the pitch. Scrabble legend Henrikh Mkhitaryan was running things all over the shop apart from whenever he got anywhere near Casillas' goal. In all, the Armenian squandered three gilt-edged chances to put the tie level, once even getting round the Madrid keeper yet contriving to strike the base of the post.

By the hour-mark Dortmund seemed to tire from their high-pressing game, leaving Real more time on the ball and more space to counter-attack into. However, the game could possibly still be going on now and Real wouldn't have scored, so poor was their decision-making in the Dortmund half. Essentially, this tie was won by Real Madrid in the first leg, and very lucky it was too as they looked bereft of ideas in Germany. Dortmund can consider themselves very unlucky to be bowing out at this stage.

It emerged after the game that Ronaldo wouldn't have come on even if Dortmund had scored the third they so richly deserved. The Portuguese may even be a doubt for the Copa del Rey final against Barcelona next Wednesday after the injury he picked up in training on Monday turned out to be worse than expected. Madrid have refused to say how long he'll be out for, but he could miss some important games. Roberto Carlos has chipped in to suggest the winger take it easy if he wants to be back sooner rather than later. Well, he is a Real legend for his hammer of a left foot, not his intellect.. Someone who could be leaving the bench is footballing legend Zinedine Zidane. Rumours have emerged that Monaco have the World Cup winner lined up as their next manager. Meanwhile, Dortmund have now completed the permanent re-signing of Nuri Sahin for EUR7m.

Contrary to the result in Dortmund, the better team definitely went through in the all-Spanish quarter final; Atlético Madrid absolutely pummelling Barcelona into the ground at the Vicente Calderón. The deserved Liga leaders were all snarling, controlled rage, hunting the ball all over the pitch and not giving the opposition the time on the ball their tiki taka requires.

Atleti started like a whirlwind, and took the lead for the second time in the tie after only 5 minutes. In fact, they could have been ahead even before that, but the massed ranks on the terraces weren't complaining.

Barça zero, Koke one

After Adrián, with all of two goals to his name this season, smashed a shot onto the woodwork, Villa put the ball back in to the same player, who intelligently headed it across for Koke to slam home at the far post. Cue pandemonium around the ground.

And Atleti didn't hang back after this magical start, either. Instead, they pinned Barcelona back with their fierce tackling and non-stop harrying. Built in the very image of their manager Diego Simeone, they defended from the front, the entire team as a single fierce unit. It took until nearly the 15th minute for the visiting team to have a sniff of goal, an out-of-sorts Messi putting his free header wide, but this did not signal Barcelona taking control. Instead, los Colcherones streamed down the other end of the pitch, and on 18 minutes Villa smacked the ball off the face of the crossbar with an audacious shot. How Barcelona were ruing the decision to let him go for just over EUR5m.

Iniesta typified the whole game for the Catalans on 28 minutes when letting a pass glide under his foot and tenderly out for a throw-in while Cesc, who cut a frustrated figure throughout, attempted two desperate dives in quick succession as the clock ticked down to half time.

Barcelona emerged for the second half knowing they'd have to score, and set about doing just that immediately. A scramble in the Atlético box was finally resolved when the brilliant but off-balance Thibaut Courtois managed to shin the ball over his own bar. The goalmouth action had begun with the Belgium 'keeper getting a strong palm on the ball as the otherwise-unimpressive Neymar attempted to round him. After an hour, Tata Martino finally saw sense and brought Alexis Sánchez on for Cesc, thereby injecting some pace into his team, and brought on Pedro for Iniesta ten minutes later.

In the end Cholo couldn't bring on Diego Costa, the striker not managing to recover in time, but he did bring on first-leg hero Diego to replace the hard-running Adrián. Then in the 78th minute the manic manager ended Villa's constant hounding of the Barça back line, replacing him with Cristian Rodríguez - nicknamed Cebolla, or the Onion - and the Uruguayan could've really made the visitors cry as he forced clown-keeper extraordinaire Pinto into a save in the 89th minute.

It didn't matter though, one goal had proved enough. The four previous meetings this season between the two teams had all ended in draws. What a time to notch a first win.

It has to be noted that the gulf between the two teams on the night was so great that even the Barcelona fans in the Calderón applauded the Atlético players at the end. Photos of the Catalan players returning back to the city, however, show them all with their heads bowed. The fans would expect nothing less. The fall-out has already begun in earnest, with Iniesta the first player to break ranks. The diminutive playmaker revealed to Canal+ that he had been 'surprised' to be subbed off in the second half. Elsewhere, official UEFA figures proved that Messi had played a poor game. The stats show the Argentine ran only 6.8km over the 90 minutes, with Koke on the other team running nearly double, at 12.2km. Even more surprising is that Messi only ended up running slightly more than comical Barcelona 'keeper Pinto, who traversed 5.3km over the course of the game.