Sometimes the fury at the gross neglect is outweighed by the relief that everyone got out unscathed.
That was pretty much the feeling on Thursday morning as Real Madrid supporters woke up and realised it wasn’t a dream, they really were still in the Champions League despite conceding three at home.
Marca’s front page screamed: ‘It was a penalty!’ but the image they used of Lucas Vazquez on the tips of his toes, knees bent, arms forward lent itself to another interpretation – he had felt contact and made the most of it.
Cristiano Ronaldo showed off his ripped physique as he celebrated Real Madrid’s late winner
Ronaldo kept his nerve to convert a stoppage time penalty as Real Madrid beat Juventus
Gianluigi Buffon was sent off for protesting the controversial award of a stoppage-time penalty
Diario AS’s resident retired referee Eduardo Iturralde said: ‘It’s not a penalty. The referee had a lot of doubts or he would have sent Benatia off. There is not enough there to award the penalty.’
Radio Marca’s former ref Juan Andujar agreed saying: ‘There is not enough contact to give a penalty. He even gets a touch on the ball.’
Zinedine Zidane’s response that he had not seen it but it was a penalty was the equivalent of someone him putting his fingers in his ears and humming the Champions League theme tune.
Madrid got away with it and they know it. They would have been furious if the kick had been awarded at the other end.
Juventus had two substitutions left to make and had it gone to spot-kicks Gianluigi Buffon would have gone into the shoot-out with far more confidence than Keylor Navas who was responsible for the third goal.
The front page of Thursday’s Marca had the headline ‘It was a penalty’ following Real’s win
AS described the win as ‘the panicked path to the semi-final’ as they reflected on the drama
Juventus defender Mehdi Benatia fouls Lucas Vazquez, leading to the all-important penalty
Navas is one man who doesn’t walk away from the wreckage completely unscathed. This was another of those nights when Real Madrid’s ongoing review of their goalkeeping situation makes perfect sense.
Alongside Buffon’s three-star rating in Marca, Navas was graded zero.
It was a night to forget for Gareth Bale and Casemiro who were both hooked at half-time. Neither were able to offer the team what they had been picked for.
There were no blistering counter-attacks from Bale whose greatest sin was perhaps unselfishness – always looking for a shorter pass to Isco or Ronaldo. And Casemiro’s protection of his two central defenders was such that they looked safer after he went off.
Zidane said after the game: ‘The switches at half time was not the fault of Bale or Casemiro but we needed to change because things were not working.’
Real goalkeeper Keylor Navas came in for further scrutiny following another poor performance
Navas spilled the ball to allow Blaise Matuidi to score the third Juventus goal at the Bernabeu
Gareth Bale was taken off at half-time with Zinedine Zidane admitting it wasn’t working
The easy conclusion is that this takes Bale closer to the exit this summer. But unless his desire to stay changes it’s hard to see his situation altering.
In one sense the absurdity of the game mean few solid conclusions will be drawn. Luka Modric was awful but he will not be sold. Likewise Karim Benzema played no part in the debacle but his star will not rise as a consequence.
Other truths have been reinforced – Ronaldo remains priceless and Zidane continues to surprise.
Where the night before Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde crouched in his technical area, hand on chin, purveying his team’s slow descent towards the edge of the cliff.
Zidane reacted decisively after 45 minutes sending Vazquez and Marco Asensio to warm up during the break.
Coach Zinedine Zidane appears to have escaped unscathed from the poor performance
His decision to bring on Lucas Vazquez ultimately proved the decisive one in the match
And Ronaldo never shrunk from the task even when it became a monumental one. ‘You were a player,’ said one reporter to Zidane at the end of the game.
‘How is it for a footballer to have to wait five minutes to take such a pressure penalty?’
Zidane just shrugged and said: ‘Ronaldo is used to it. He scored and that’s that.’ The shirt off celebration will have reminded many of his celebration in 2014 when his late spot-kick increased Madrid’s winning margin over Atletico.
It was also another reminder that the chiselled physique is the same today as it was four years ago. Florentino Perez knows it makes bad business sense to give a 33-year-old a massive new contract. But he also knows that this is not just any 33-year-old.
Ronaldo will get his new deal. The only doubt is whether the club wait until before or after their third Champions League final to award it. They have to reach Ukraine first.
Facing Bayern or Liverpool in particular will not be easy, especially if they are without Ramos again.
Ronaldo may be 33 but Real are almost certain to offer him a new contract this summer
A five-minute wait before taking the penalty didn’t faze Ronaldo as he swept Real through
Michael Oliver included in his match report that Ramos was in the tunnel instead of the stand where a suspended player should be, during injury time last night.
If Uefa give him another game’s ban Madrid will suffer again, although the ever-reliable Nacho should have recovered from his hamstring strain by then.
And Real Madrid feel that nothing that they come up against between now and the end of this tournament can be any tougher than the Juventus test they came through last night.
‘Suffering like never before; in the semi-finals just like always’, read one headline in Marca. They have reached the last four in all of the last eight seasons.
Ronaldo, meanwhile has scored in his last 11 Champions League games. With him in the team they can afford to suffer and still come out smiling at the finish.