Cristiano Ronaldo ensures Real Madrid ease past PSG into last eight

Farewell then, Paris, a team that for all its vaulting ambition never does seem to get past the spring. On a gripping, relentlessly noisy night at the Parc des Princes second-half goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Casemiro were enough to extinguish once again Paris Saint‑Germain’s hopes of making it to the late stages of the Champions League.

A 5-2 aggregate victory hardly does justice to the French champions’ fine showing in the opening hour of the first leg of this tie. But the ease of Real Madrid’s ultimate victory speaks volumes not just for their own champion poise but for the difficulty of combining dreams of European dominance with the room-temperature French league.

PSG had won their last four games since that first leg in Madrid, with an aggregate score of 13-2. This, though, was something else as Madrid pranced about from the start with an alluring sure-footedness. As he often does away from home, Ronaldo led his team on from the front, unveiling a few extra tricks and flicks, puffing his chest out.

Unai Emery will fear for his future from here. By the end his team of plastic galácticos were down to 10 men and if not quite in disarray, then tamed far too easily.

As ever the Parc des Princes had been a booming, boisterous concrete cavern before kick-off, bouncing with that familiar Parisian surge of noise. It is a paradox of this cartoonishly inflated club that it has retained an authentically passionate core, both ends keeping up a relentless wall of noise throughout this game. Football is a resilient thing. You can’t kill the spirit. Not yet anyway.



Source: theguardian

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