merciless madrid wrap up quarter-final berth published: tuesday 18 march 2014, 22.48cet
real madrid cf 3-1 fc schalke 04 (agg: 9-2)
cristiano ronaldo's double took him to 13 goals for the season, within one of the european cup record for a single campaign, as the home side eased through.
by paul bryan from santiago bernabéu
real madrid cf are among europe's best eight teams for a fourth consecutive season after the nine-time winners completed the job of emphatically eliminating fc schalke 04 from the uefa champions league.
a record 6-1 home defeat in the first leg meant jens keller's schalke faced an all-but impossible task to reach this season's quarter-finals and their challenge got no easier in the return, cristiano ronaldo's 12th goal of this season's competition bringing the second leg to life in the 21st minute. visiting full-back tim hoogland's deflected effort ten minutes later brought parity before second half efforts from ronaldo again – taking him within one goal of the record for a european cup season – and álvaro morata wrapped up another madrid victory.
feeling the effects of their weekend toils against málaga cf, madrid rang the changes and there was immediate concern for one of those replacements, forward jesé, who was carried off following a challenge from sead kolasinac. gareth bale was summoned from the bench and the substitute had a significant hand in the merengues' opener, accepting morata's pass and crossing for ronaldo to sweep in his 40th club goal this season.
bale was again involved soon afterwards as the hosts sought to maintain their 100% home record in this season's competition. with joel matip giving up possession, the welsh international pounced to sprint past matip and find morata, but the finish was scuffed wide.
a huge travelling contingent cheered the visitors on throughout the game and were rewarded when schalke equalised in the 31st minute. hoogland advanced and his speculative effort from distance clipped defender sergio ramos to wrongfoot iker casillas in madrid's goal.
going into the game on a run of 30 games without defeat – 25 of which had ended in wins – madrid pressed again and were only denied early in the second half thanks to excellent work from fährmann. the schalke custodian was eventually beaten with 16 minutes left, ronaldo's shot at the end of a probing forward run flashing inside the near post.
barely 60 seconds later schalke substitute kyriakos papadopoulos ceded possession and, although morata's initial shot was blocked by fährmann, the spanish under-21 international eventually stroked in after ronaldo's effort crashed against the crossbar and back for bale, who squared to the goalscorer. ronaldo was denied his hat-trick again by the base of a post but by then the men in white were contemplating friday's quarter-final draw.
