‘Everything has gone’, says Carvajal after Real crash out of Champions League
Solari pledges to continue after Madrid dumped out by Ajax
MADRID: Real Madrid defender Dani Carvajal has admitted their season is over after the defending champions were dumped out of the Champions League last 16 on Tuesday.
Ajax ran riot at the Santiago Bernabeu, winning 4-1 and 5-3 on aggregate to send the holders out before the quarter- finals for the first time since 2010.
Madrid’s humiliation comes at the end of a miserable seven days, in which they had already been knocked out of the Copa del Rey and, realistically, La Liga’s title race following consecutive defeats at home to Barcelona. “I’ve never felt as sick as this, I don’t know how to explain it,” said Carvajal.
“In one week everything has gone, and all of it after matches at home. Tonight we can’t look for excuses, they were better and they deserved to go through.
“We have a young team that can improve. It is clear the season is over but we will continue working in the league because that’s what we have to do and we have to be professional.” — AFP
MADRID: Santiago Solari vowed to fight on but the reign of Real Madrid in Europe is over and their season effectively is too after they were stunned by a 4-1 defeat at home to Ajax on Tuesday.
In seven days, Madrid have been knocked out of the Copa del Rey, La Liga’s title race and now the last 16 of the Champions League, the competition they had come to believe was their own.
They had won it three times in a row, four times in the last five years, while the last time Madrid failed to reach the quarter-finals was 2010, in Cristiano Ronaldo’s first year at the club.
Ronaldo rescued them last season in the quarter-finals and then Gareth Bale won them the trophy, but the former is gone and the latter started on the bench here, dropped again by Solari.
Solari oversaw an improvement after Julen Lopetegui was sacked in November but his team, 12 points behind Barcelona in La Liga, have watched their season unravel in a week.
Madrid president Florentino Perez is now faced with deciding whether it is worth keeping his coach until the end of the season, let alone beyond the summer.
“I did not come to the club in such a difficult moment to give up,” Solari said afterwards.
He could have few complaints. Ajax were hard- done- by in the 2-1 first-leg defeat and dominant
I did not come to the club in such a difficult moment to give up.
at the Santiago Bernabeu, their scintillating victory confirming a 5-3 win on aggregate and a place in the quarter- finals. On this evidence, they can go further.
Hakim Ziyech and David Neres put them two up at half-time and the excellent Dusan Tadic made it three before Marco Asensio gave Madrid hope. It lasted two minutes, as Lasse Schone sent a bending free-kick into the top corner before Nacho was sent off in injury-time.
Bale was on after 29 minutes for the injured Lucas Vazquez but hit the post and then missed two good chances. Sergio Ramos was in the stands, having earned a deliberate booking to clear a ban, believing this tie was already won.
It ended up looking like a spectacular miscalculation, however.
“Without talking badly about any of our players, of course we missed our captain,” Solari told Movistar.
Santiago Solari, Real Madrid manager