Madrid,
\nReal Madrid\u2019s final Champions League rehearsal was running perfectly until Cristiano Ronaldo was substituted and Villarreal scored twice to snatch a 2-2 draw. Gareth Bale and Ronaldo put Real in cruise control at the Estadio de la Ceramica on Saturday but the Portuguese, along with Luka Modric, was taken off shortly after the hour and Villarreal came surging back.<\/p>\n
It was two substitutes that did it Roger Martinez unleashing a stunning strike into the top corner before Samu Castillejo struck the equaliser five minutes from time. Castillejo took advantage of some hesitation from Luca Zidane, Zinedine Zidane\u2019s 20-year-old son, who was making his debut for Real in goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am happy for his debut, it is an important day for him and his coach,\u201d Zidane senior said afterwards. \u201cFor his father, we will see what he says at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The draw means any hopes Real had of snatching La Liga\u2019s runners-up spot off city rivals Atletico have ended but their attention will quickly turn to Liverpool and next weekend\u2019s Champions League showdown in Kiev. Villarreal jump above Real Betis into fifth.<\/p>\n
If Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp had been spying for signs of weakness, he would have found few in the opening hour, when Real looked slick, clinical and set for a comfortable victory. But, defensive frailties were exposed again and perhaps this result underlines that if Ronaldo can be neutralised, this is still a team that is far from unbeatable. \u201cWe are ready,\u201d Zidane said. \u201cWe have not had any injuries today and we are ready to play our last match and our final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronaldo was withdrawn after 61 minutes, the 33-year-old showing no sign of discomfort in what was his first outing since spraining his ankle against Barcelona a fortnight ago. Bale too will hope his smart turn and finish could yet earn him a starting spot against Liverpool, even if Zidane has shown propensity for ignoring the Welshman\u2019s league form in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madrid, Real Madrid\u2019s final Champions League rehearsal was running perfectly until Cristiano Ronaldo was substituted and Villarreal scored twice to snatch a 2-2 draw. Gareth Bale and Ronaldo put Real in cruise control at the Estadio de la Ceramica on Saturday but the Portuguese, along with Luka Modric, was taken off shortly after the hour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31732,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31730\/revisions\/31732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}