Gary Lineker stuck the boot in after Real Madrid were powerless to stop Chelsea easing into Champions League final with a 2-0 win on Wednesday night.
The 3-1 aggregate scoreline reflected the gulf in quality shown between the two sides, as a much more determined Chelsea team came out on top after a tight first leg.
It was a very disappointing showing from Zinedine Zidane’s side, who were always chasing the game thanks to Chelsea’s away goal.
And Lineker admitted that he had come to expect much more from Los Blancos given their pedigree in the Champions League in recent years.
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“Finally Chelsea bury the semifinal,” the former England striker tweeted.
“They’ve been excellent and a million miles the better side against the poorest Real Madrid team I think I’ve ever seen.”
Meanwhile, Rio Ferdinand admitted that it looked a bit like the Real players were fatigued and ageing, in comparison to that of Chelsea.
“Yes, this Real Madrid side are a great team with experienced players, but they looked tired tonight,” he said on BT Sport.
“They looked like an old team tonight and Chelsea looked like a young, energised team that were hungry.”
Zidane commended Chelsea after the game for their superior performance, and insisted that their focus was firmly on overturning Atletico Madrid’s advantage to win La Liga.
“Chelsea deserved to go through,” said the legendary Frenchman “We did our best, but they deserved to win and go through.
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“The players were prepared for the semi-final and I’m proud of them. They did their best, but we were one game away from the final and Chelsea played really well. They’ve gone through and I’d like to congratulate them.
“We had a lot of players missing, but now we have four games left in the league and we have to recover and be ready to fight for the league title. It’s really important that we do that.
“We’ve had a really good Champions League run and we were just one game away from the final.
“We’re not going to throw in the towel with four games to go now. We have to finish the season as strongly as we can.”
