Bale rescues Real madrid in club world cup

Gareth Bale came off the bench to
book Real Madrid’ s place in the Club
World Cup final as the European
champions recovered from the shock
of going behind to beat Emirati
champions Al Jazira 2 - 1 on
Wednesday .
Despite dominating throughout,
Madrid trailed at half- time to
Romarinho’s opener in a match also
marred by use of the video assistant
referee (VAR) that ruled out a goal for
both sides.
Madrid’ s pressure finally paid off 10
minutes into the second half when
Cristiano Ronaldo levelled before Bale
broke Al Jazira’ s resistence with his
first touch eight minutes from time.
Real will go for their fifth trophy of
the year when they face Brazilian side
Gremio on Saturday .
Al Jazira , only invited to the
competition as champions of the host
country , enjoyed their 15 minutes of
fame at the break after a remarkable
first 45 minutes.
Madrid scored five in the first half
against Sevilla on Saturday and could
easily have had another handful but
for some exceptional goalkeeping from
Ali Khaseif .
The Al Jazira captain made an
incredible stop to turn a deflected
Ronaldo header onto the bar then got
down well to parry efforts from Luka
Modric and Karim Benzema .
Benzema also had a goal ruled out for
a push by Ronaldo in the build - up, but
Madrid thought they had finally gone
ahead when Casemiro’ s header
deflected off an Al Jazira head and
looped over Khaseif .
However , after a four - minute delay
for the VAR referral, Brazilian referee
Sandro Ricci disallowed the goal due
to Benzema being in an offside
position despite the fact the
Frenchman was arguably not
interfering with play .
In total Madrid had 18 shots on goal in
the first half, but were shocked four
minutes before the break when the
hosts caught the Real defence cold on
the counter - attack .
A poor clearance from Nacho gifted
away possession inside the Madrid
half and Romarinho showed great
composure to cut inside and curl his
shot inside Keylor Navas ’ far post .
A monumental upset looked on when
Al Jazira had the ball in the net for a
second time two minutes into the
second half.
However , this time VAR came to
Madrid’ s rescue as Mbark Boussoufa
was offside by the finest of margins
before slotting home .
Zinedine Zidane’ s men grabbed that
let- off gratefully and were level eight
minutes later when Ronaldo was
played in by Modric and smashed a
shot past Khaled Al Senaani, who had
replaced the injured Khaseif moments
earlier .
Madrid continued to lay seige to the Al
Jazira goal , but the misfiring Benzema
shot straight at Al Senaani then hit the
post with two other glorious chances.
Benzema was eventually replaced by
Bale , who had only played 28 minutes
since September due to a series of
injuries .
The Welshman made an instant
impact, though, as he slotted home
Lucas Vazquez ’s cutback to Real ’s
relief.