He Did It!

Time passed by, bit by bit.

Yang Yang tried to cross from the left side of the penalty area. His low ball went straight across the face of goal, but under pressure from Lyon's two center-backs, Chris and Baumson, Ibrahimovic failed to get on the end of it.

At the far post, Lyon's left-back Aly Cissokho made a timely, crucial clearance. He got to the ball before substitute Raul and booted it out of the penalty area, defusing another Real Madrid attack.

By this point, Real Madrid had very little time left.

There were less than five minutes remaining in regulation.

Benitez looked as though he had no intention of making another substitution.

So far, he had made only one change, replacing the tiring Robben with Raul.

That had been Real Madrid's standard substitution pattern over the past six months. Apart from Yang Yang and Robben, the team had no genuine wingers.

After coming on, Raul moved more toward the center. Arbeloa on the right and Maxwell on the left also pushed forward actively, joining the attack and trying to score an away goal in the final few minutes to level the match.

An away draw at 1–1 and a 0–1 defeat were two completely different results.

Of course, the prerequisite for chasing a goal was that the team could not concede another.

A 0–1 away result was not necessarily bad, especially given Real Madrid's current situation.

They had not reached the quarterfinals in six years and had been eliminated in the round of sixteen year after year. With Real Madrid temporarily trailing 0–1 away from home, they still had a strong chance of advancing after returning to Bernabéu, so Benitez had no need to take risks here.

There were advantages and disadvantages. Losing away meant they would have to