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Chelsea and Real Madrid advance in Champions League

Other News Materials 15 March 2012 01:52 (UTC +04:00)
Chelsea spared England's blushes as they beat Napoli 4-1 in extra-time to advance to the Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Chelsea and Real Madrid advance in Champions League

Chelsea spared England's blushes as they beat Napoli 4-1 in extra-time to advance to the Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday, dpa reported.

The 5-4 aggregate victory saw Chelsea becoming the only Premier League club in the round of the last eight. Had they failed, it would have been the first time since 1996 that England was not represented in the quarter-finals of Europe's top club competition.

In Wednesday's other return leg in the round of 16 Real Madrid eased into the next round with a comfortable 4-1 victory against CSKA Moscow for a 5-2 aggregate victory.

But while the game in Madrid was a one-sided affair, the same can not be said about the match in London, where Chelsea managed to turn around a 3-1 first leg defeat in Italy.

Didier Drogba, who on the weekend made history by becoming the first African player to score 100 Premier League goals, gave the Blues the lead midway through the first half with a diving header from Ramires' cross.

Captain John Terry doubled Chelsea's lead and gave them the score that would have taken them through just two minutes after the restart when he headed home from a Frank Lampard corner.

A well-taken long-range goal from Swiss international Goekhan Inler swung the advantage back to Napoli in the 55th minute, but a Lampard penalty awarded after Andrea Dossena handled in the area made the aggregate score 4-4 and forced the game into extra-time.

In the last minute of the first half of extra-time Serbian defender Branislav Ivanovic gave Chelsea the goal they needed when he scored from a Drogba cross.

Chelsea then hung on to the victory that saw them through to the next round.

In Madrid a brace by Cristiano Ronaldo and further goals by Gonzalo Higuain and substitute Karim Benzema gave the home side a comfortable win on the night for a 5-2 aggregate victory.

Higuain opened the scoring in the 26th minute after Sami Khedira found Kaka on the flank and the Brazilian played goalwards, where Higuain had a simple task in pushing the ball into the net.

Any chance the visitors had of coming back into the game were in effect killed-off ten minutes after the restart when CSKA goalkeeper Sergey Chepchugov gifted the home side a second goal when he let Ronaldo's shot from 36 metres slip through his hands and into the net.

Substitute Benzema added a third a minute after coming on in the 69th minute.

Zoran Tosic managed to make the score somewhat respectable with a consolation goal for the Russian side in the 77th minute, before Ronaldo scored his second deep into injury time after being set up by Benzema.

Real and Chelsea join the previously qualified Bayern Munich, Olympique Marseille, AC Milan, Benfica Lisbon, APOEL Nicosia, as well as defending champions Barcelona in Friday's draw for the quarter-finals.

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