FC Barcelona

Real Madrid

Spain

World Football

Results

Opinion

Ajax 1-2 Real Madrid: VAR brings Los Blancos towards quarter-finals

The referee took off an Ajxa goal with the score at 0-0 and the Dutch side had impressed

Juan Carlos Gracia

Real Madrid scraped to a 2-1 win at Ajax on Wednesday after playing badly in Amsterdam in the Champions League last 16 first leg.

Nicolas Tagliafico struck in the first half for Ajax but the goal was ruled out by VAR controversially as Dusan Tadic was deemed to be offside and interfering with play.

Most glad the goal was ruled out was Thibaut Courtois who had made a terrible handling error in the build up.

Tadic also hit the post in an eventful first half which Ajax dominated with European champions Madrid pale and ineffective.

Regardless, Santiago Solari’s side took the lead when Vinicius Junior charged into the box and set up French forward Karim Benzema.

Hakim Ziyech hit a deserved equaliser for Ajax but Marco Asensio netted the winner with three minutes to go from Dani Carvajal’s cross.

 "I have said many times that I am a great defender of the VAR because it will make football fairer little by little,” said Sergio Ramos after his 600th game.

 

"We knew how to suffer, read the game and create spaces against them to take advantage of our speed, we achieved a great result and now it's up to them to suffer in our stadium."