By Alexia Krause
MADRID, Spain (TheSportsNext) September 19, 2012: Cristiano Ronaldo once again raised his game when Real Madrid needed him the most, this time against Manchester City as the star striker broke the hearts of English fans at Bernabeu.
The Real Madrid came from behind twice before Cristiano Ronaldo came up with his magical touch right at the end of the encounter to take his side to an emphatic 3-2 home victory in their Group D match of the UEFA Champions League 2012.
Jose Mourinho couldn’t control his emotions as soon as Cristiano Ronaldo struck the third goal and he rolled himself on to the playing field, emulating what his star striker did after scoring that decisive goal.
The Real Madrid have been finding themselves shorter on confidence this season as their La Liga campaign got off to a worst possible start and Jose Mourinho injected some bitter criticism on his main players ahead of their first UEFA Champions League game and that too against the English Premier League champions Manchester City.
Manchester City took the lead twice but failed to get hold of the advantage on both occasions as their lead was twice cut down immediately by Real Madrid and Roberto Mancini’s side looked settled for a draw before Cristiano Ronaldo came on to his own and stunned the visitors with a brilliant strike that dipped on the Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart on its way into the net.
All the hot action was recorded in the second half after both teams came back into the hut leveled at 0-0 at halftime.
Manchester City got the lead through substitutes Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov but on both occasion Real Madrid had an instant answer with Marcelo and substitute Karim Benzema as the match looked all set for a draw after 87 minutes of hard and tough soccer.
That 90th minute goal pumped up the whole stadium including Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho as they showed their fists pumping before performing a celebratory kneed onto the pitch from his technical area.
A pumped up Ronalod told the broadcasters, "I celebrate when I have to celebrate. The match was very important for us and we are back in the fight”.
It is important to mention here that Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 151 goals for the Real Madrid in as many games while tonight’s goal was his 39th goal in the UEFA Champions League and is now tied with former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba.
Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart expressed his anger and frustration with the ITV television when he said, "It's not on. You can't go 2-1 up and lose the game. We can only blame ourselves. They are a very good team and so are we. We dug deep, got a lead twice and threw it away. It's hard to come off the field after losing 3-2 and be positive."
Following are the Real Madrid and Manchester City squads for Tuesday’s encounter.
Real Madrid1-Iker Casillas
17-Alvaro Arbeloa
3-Pepe
2-Raphael Varane
12-Marcelo
14-Xabi Alonso
6-Sami Khedira
15-Michael Essien
7-Cristiano Ronaldo
20-Gonzalo Higuain
22-Angel Di Maria
Manchester City
1-Joe Hart
3-Maicon
4-Vincent Kompany
33-Matija Nastasic
22-Gael Clichy
42-Yaya Toure
14-Javi Garcia
18-Gareth Barry
21-David Silva
32-Carlos Tevez
8-Samir Nasri
Referee: Damir Skomina (Slovenia)
Following are the results from Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League action
Dortmund 1-0 Ajax
Dinamo Zagreb 0-2 Porto
AC Milan 0-0 Anderlecht
Montpellier 1-2 Arsenal
Malaga 3-0 Zenit
Olympiakos 1-2 Schalke
Paris SG 4-1 Dynamo Kyiv
Real Madrid 3-2 Manchester City
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