Our 4️⃣ points after a thriller at the Bernabéu and Bayern crash out | OneFootball

It was a Champions League night for the ages on Tuesday as Real Madrid and Chelsea played out a classic at the Bernabéu, and Villarreal upset the odds to dump out Bayern Munich.

Here’s what we made of it all …

Will the real Real Madrid please stand up?

Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid are one of the most difficult teams to understand in the world this season.

At times they are astonishingly good, as they were in the first half of last week’s first leg at Stamford Bridge.

And at times they can be all at sea, as they were for much of the second leg, until Luka Modrić took matters into his own hands to get them back on track with a sublime assist for Rodrygo’s equaliser.

They missed Éder Miltão’s presence at the back in this game and Karim Benzema had an unusually quiet 90 minutes before finally getting his goal in extra-time, but in a similar way to their victory over PSG at the Bernabéu in the last round, their quality was just enough to drag them over the line and into the final four.

Maybe Atletico Madrid or Manchester City will better exploit their weaknesses in the semi-final but for now they can celebrate a remarkable victory and keep dreaming of number 14.

A valiant effort to be proud of

It has been a difficult few weeks in Chelsea’s history and Thomas Tuchel and his players should be commended for how they have soldiered on amid the off-field turmoil.

It felt like they were dead and buried when Benzema put Real Madrid 3-1 up in last week’s second leg but Tuchel will have told his players to go out and throw caution to the wind at the Bernabéu, and that was exactly what they did.

For 80 minutes their plan worked to perfection but they could do little about Madrid’s equaliser and it swung the tie back in the hosts’ favour.

The holders will be disappointed to have been knocked out but this was a performance to be proud of and with the FA Cup semi-final coming their way on Sunday, there is little time to dwell on it.

The Yellow Submarine rides again

Knocking out Juventus in the last round felt like a remarkable enough underdog story and few people gave Villarreal any hope of overcoming Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals.

But the Europa League holders once again showed their pedigree with a stunning display of togetherness to beat Bayern against all odds and book their spot in the semis. Their winning goal was a beautiful counter-attack finished superbly by Samuel Chukwueze and worthy of winning any game.

What an incredible job Unai Emery has done to get this talented but modest squad massively overachieving at this level. They are greater than the sum of their parts and Emery’s response to those who criticised him during his spell at Arsenal could hardly have been more resounding in the last couple of years.

Whether they face Liverpool or Benfica in the next round, the Yellow Submarine are not to be underestimated again.

A steep learning curve for Nagelsmann

As wonderful as the Villarreal story is, this has to be considered a huge missed opportunity from Bayern’s perspective.

The Bundesliga giants were considered by many to be one of the top three teams left in the competition when the draw for the last eight was made and even after their disjointed defeat in the first leg, it felt more than likely they would turn the tie around in Munich.

But Bayern took too long to get into the swing of things in the second leg and were unable to maintain enough momentum to build on Robert Lewandowski’s equalising goal. They dominated the ball and created more chances, but it was not an undeserved defeat over the course of the tie.

It is still early days for Julian Nagelsmann and he will evolve as a coach in the coming years, but despite their domestic dominance, there is something not quite clicking with this Bayern team this season.

Whether this disappointing exit has any impact on Lewandowski’s future plans remains to be seen.