Spanish club giant Real Madrid took a huge step towards booking their place in the Copa
del Rey final by beating out-of-sorts city rivals Atletico Madrid 3-0 at
the Bernabeu.
Atletico - the cup holders - had won twice
in a row in north Madrid to sorely irritate their more successful
neighbours, and Carlo Ancelotti's men used Wednesday night's first-leg
semi-final to convincingly reassert their authority.
Cristiano
Ronaldo would not score on his 29th birthday, while Gareth Bale was
absent from the squad for unspecified reasons, but an own-goal from
Emiliano Insua and second-half efforts from Jese and Angel Di Maria gave
Atletico a mountain to climb in next week's reverse at the Vicente
Calderon.
The opening goal arrived in bizarre circumstances in the 17th minute.
When
Real's forwards were pushed out to the fringes of the box, Pepe picked
up the ball and drove it fiercely but errantly towards goal.
His
shot would have been wildly off-target but took a huge, fateful
deflection off Insua to unsight Thibaut Courtois and veer into the back
of the net.
Pepe risked earning an early red card for
engaging in niggling challenges with Atletico's 20-goal striker Diego
Costa, whose ongoing frustration with the defender took his focus off
leading the visitors' line.
Away from the scrapping Real
were pushing hard for a second goal and found Courtois an immovable
object as the young Belgian parried shots from both Jese and Luka Modric
around the half-hour mark.
Jese would have better luck
after the break, the Spain Under-21 striker doubling Real's advantage
shortly before the hour was up.
Di Maria provided the pass for Jese to run onto and he took the ball in his stride before beating Courtois with a low shot.
If things were starting to look grim enough for Atletico at that point, they would get worse.
Firstly,
Costa earned the yellow card that ruled him out of the return leg and,
in the 74th minute, Real scored their third goal.
Provider
turned goalscorer as Di Maria took aim from just outside the area. Joao
Miranda put his body in the way but he could not stop the ball from
beating Courtois to compound a miserable night for Atletico.
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