Real Madrid went down to a fairly superior Bayern Munich side during the first leg of the quarter-final, but the tie is far from over as we take a look at some of the positive aspects from Los Blancos' perspective.
Two of Europe's biggest clubs, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, took the stage on Tuesday night during the Champions League quarter-final first-leg clash at the Santiago Bernabeu and delivered one of the finest matches in recent memory.
The first half was fairly dominated by the Bavarians, who controlled most of the possession as the Whites looked deadly on a couple of occasions with their lightning-fast counterattacks, but as usual, a 40-year-old Manuel Neuer was up to the task against the shots fired from Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior.
Los Blancos were, of course, lucky to end the first half only down by one goal as Bayern failed to convert from the sloppy passes from the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Thiago Pitarch, causing all the problems for Andriy Lunin at goal.
Harry Kane extended Bayern's lead within a minute into the second half as Alvaro Arbeloa's men had no clue about what hit them and the Bavarians followed it up with more intensive attacks looking to kill the tie although as the hour mark passed, Los Merengues had the chance of the night as Vini Jr. was quick to react onto a mistake from Jonathon Tah but the Brazilian failed to score past Neuer adding to the agony of the home fans as whistles started to rain.
But it was the start of a turnaround for the hosts, as they finally made their presence felt on the night, with the Whites constantly troubling the Bayern Defense from all sides.
Arbeloa decided to shake things up just at the right moment, as it seems he brought in Jude Bellingham, Eder Militao, and Brahim Diaz into the game in order to keep the momentum going.
And yet again, Mbappe opened the scoring for Los Blancos in the 74th minute, bringing his team back into the tie as it read 2-1 on the scoreboard, which remained unchanged after the final whistle.
Positives from Real Madrid's narrow defeat against Bayern Munich
It was inches away from being a night to forget for the Madridistas, but the character shown in the final thirty minutes of the game would definitely give hope to the fans heading into the second leg.
It surely didn't went according to the plans for Los Blancos but the stats at the end of the first leg shows a completely different story as Madrid were level in terms of total shots on goal with Bayern as both teams registered 20 shots each during the 90 minutes but surprisingly it was the Whites who kept nine of them on target compared to the visitors' eight.
It was definitely a night to forget for the likes of Pitarch and Alvaro Carreras, which the coaches would definitely give a closer look during the next seven days, but one thing is for sure, Arbeloa shouldn't commit the same mistake of keeping Bellingham out of the starting lineup in Munich on April 15th.
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