Galatasaray out despite win against Real Madrid

Turkey’s Galatasaray won the second leg of the quarter-final in UEFA Champions League against Spain’s Real Madrid, 3-2, in a home game on Tuesday.

Despite the win they will not go through to semi-final because they were beaten by Real Madrid 3-0 in the first leg in Madrid a week ago.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored an early goal in the first half which extended Madrid’s aggregate lead to 4-0. But Galatasaray came back strongly in the second half with goals from Emmanuel Eboue, Wesley Sneijder and Didier Drogba. However, Ronaldo’s late goal secured a 5-3 win on aggregate and a place in semi-finals.

At a press conference following the game against Real Madrid, Galatasaray coach Fatih Terim said that ‘although we couldn’t make it to semi-final in the Champions League, everyone is proud with our team’.

‘I had promised a Galatasaray with which everyone could be proud of whether or not we won. Today our team was one with which everyone was proud of,’ Terim stated.

‘When the score was 3-1, I had hopes of advancing to the semi-final and so did the fans. We all carried the hope of advancing to the semi-final,’ Terim said.

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho, also speaking at a press conference following Tuesday’s game against Galatasaray, commented, ‘our players were not affected by the atmosphere at the Turk Telekom Arena but the Turkish players were, and played an excellent game’.