The Spanish-German double match that threw up the semi-final draw for Champions League has, at least for the moment, a clear winner and certainly Germany. For if we told Tuesday that the Bayern Munich passed over Barca and won 4-0, on Wednesday has happened pretty much the same to Real Madrid in Dortmund dropped a 4-1 so the possibility of an all-German end is pretty close.

Borussia Dortmund was better than Real Madrid; he ran over at times and took advantage of the defensive weakness with a spectacular white Robert Lewandowski who scored all four goals of the game, three of them in the first leg of the second half. Earlier, Cristiano Ronaldo had been faithful to their appointment with the goal and that gives a glimmer of hope to all white still need a major comeback to keep dreaming of the tenth.

Dortmund and Real Madrid took the field with no surprises in their lineups. The German recovered to Hummels in defense while in the white set Modric was in midfield while yielding as gray as or more than their peers and, Sergio Ramos, as expected, on the right wing as cover for Arbeloa so Varane and Pepe shared the center of defense. Read more »