Galatasaray 3 Real Madrid

Jose Mourinho's players move on unhurt and perhaps even a little wiser for the shake-up they received after Galatasaray scored three of the five second-half goals they needed for a historic revival in Istanbul. With their domestic title surrendered, this club's obsession with the European Cup is now unobscured.

No other club has such a history with this competition: they hold a record nine titles and last night earned a record 24th semi-final appearance, but such a staging post has never counted for much at the club who co-habited with the trophy for its first five years.

Now they have a manager whose history is also tied with the Champions League. Jose Mourinho threw the medal he won with Porto away to take up the chase with Chelsea. His failure to bring the trophy to Roman Abramovich was cited in their divorce; his success with Inter Milan established him again as the go-to guy for the big prize.

This has been his challenge with Madrid and this seems certain to be his final spin at it. Last night, we were reminded that he is armed with a depth of talent that should stand the rigours of any run-in, especially one with such a singular focus. For all that Galatasaray provided a stirring comeback to bring the tie back from the dead, they never got close enough to go for the kill.

The money in Galatasaray's roster is in the pension fund, paid to the handful of players plucked from bigger leagues because the Turkish club are willing to pay over market value for athletes unwanted by the elite. Didier Drogba and Wesley Sneijder top the list, but Hamit Altintop, signed from Madrid, Emmanuel Eboue and Felipe Melo are on it also.

By contrast, Madrid could replace the suspended Xabi Alonso with Luka Modric, previously an A-lister in the Barclays Premier League. When Michael Essien was injured in the first half, from the bench came Spain's right-back, Alvaro Arbeloa. Diego Lopez continues to keep out the national team's captain, Iker Casillas, in goal.

The bottom line in this economics lesson was delivered by the most expensive footballer in the history of the sport. Cristiano Ronaldo scored even earlier than he had in the first leg of this tie. He has scored 47 in 47 games this season and may yet end the summer with his stamp on the Champions League.

It took the tournament's top goalscorer seven minutes to deploy the penalty-box game that has all but erased memories of the touchline-tied winger of his youth. As Sami Khedira prepared to cross from the right, Ronaldo's movement between Selcuk Inan and Emmanuel Eboue was audacious and right on the border of offside. He left the shoulder of Inan and then bumped Eboue out of the fight for Khedira's pass, gently diverting it into the net with a flash of his right boot.

Ronaldo had led a devastating break before the goal, swirling between three opponents as if they were plastic poles on the training pitch. After it,We have a wide selection of handsfreeaccess to choose from for your storage needs. he provided a glorious back-heeled pass to give Angel di Maria a clear look at goal and Fernando Musrela made a remarkable save with his left hand.

Not everything he did was exemplary, however, and his stumbling, skewed finish from eight yards in the second half when staring at Musrela displayed a rare fallibility. It also invited a spectacular onslaught from Galatasaray.

Thirteen minutes later, Sneijder's control in a tight spot was instant and he shot low and hard past Diego Lopez before he could get down.

Then, incredibly, the Ali Sami Yen stadium believed in a miracle. Drogba has made a career of dominating defenders to obtain space inside the box. His latest victim, the rookie Raphael Varane, will have experienced nothing like it. Drogba moved him round like a dancehall partner,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. earning the space for a high-tariff back-heel shot off Sabri Sarioglu's low cross that rolled into the bottom-left corner of the goal. There were almost 20 minutes left and the home team needed two more.

In the end and despite a red card for Arbeloa, Madrid closed it out. Ronaldo had the final say, whirling on to a cut-back by Karim Benzema.

Istanbul won the day and protected its pride,Our RFID solutions support a broad range of polishedtiles and labels. but last night's action was lit by what happened in Spain last week. There remains the suspicion that at least one of the participants in the Wembley final will come from that country.

On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, in front of a record crowd of 80,676, John Cena finally got redemption. Last year at WrestleMania, the Rock beat him and then walked away from Cena and WWE.Other companies want a piece of that lasercutter action Without a chance to avenge his loss,Shop wholesale solarlight controller from cheap. what was Cena to do? He muddled his way through a year of aimless feuds — if they seemed dull to the viewer at home, imagine how they must have seemed to Cena — and became animated only when matched against CM Punk, his recurrent dance partner. But Punk was no Rock, and Cena was never able to defeat Punk for his WWE title, or even to mount a sustained challenge for the belt. At times, Cena's yearning looked as if it would never be fulfilled. When the Rock returned to WWE last fall, he fell into a feud with Punk and once again left Cena in the cold. One could almost begin to imagine a main-event scene without Cena.

But Cena regrouped. He entered January's Royal Rumble, a potential ignominy for a wrestler of his stature, but also a sign of humility and a powerful signal that his perseverance and desire were steadfast. Cena won the Rumble — he had acquiesced to the wrestling fates, and they had shown him favor.

Cena parlayed his Rumble win into a WrestleMania match against the WWE champion, who, as the fates had it, was the Rock, who claimed Punk's championship belt on the very night that Cena won the Rumble. Their mutual ascension and impending collision may have seemed serendipitous, but Cena's redemption was still not guaranteed. For years, Cena had been trying to best the Rock.

Their one meeting in the ring at last year's Mania fell in Rock's column — but that was only a piece of it. Cena's attempts at film stardom couldn't match the Rock's celebrity. Repeated wars of words on WWE broadcasts had favored the Rock, with Cena's battle raps no match for the Rock's Weird Al–ified rendition of "Jailhouse Rock." Hell, Cena's whole career has taken place in the Rock's shadow, since the period in which Cena headlined paled in comparison — both in viewership and in quality — to the Rock's Attitude Era. Cena needed to avenge his loss not only to satisfy his own ego but also to legitimize himself and the current wrestling era. He needed to solidify his legacy. Cena had fought villains, he'd battled monsters, he'd stood tall against nefarious bosses, and he'd slugged it out with popular opinion. But never had the stakes been this high. On Sunday, Cena fought for his very soul.