Shane Carter came down from the pitch.
The reporters around him immediately swarmed forward.
By this point,
Shane had already scored 12 Champions League goals and provided 10 assists.
In this match,
Dortmund had used their attacking pressure to force Shane to spend most of his energy on defense.
From one point of view,
that was successful.
But even so,
Shane still managed to provide an assist.
Now everyone was focusing on the second leg.
"Shane, talk about this match..."
"Shane, you didn't score today. What do you think about that?"
"Shane, what do you make of Dortmund?"
Microphones were shoved toward his face from all directions.
Shane knew he couldn't avoid the interview, but he had no intention of dodging it.
Dortmund really were strong.
In fact,
they could be considered the strongest team he had faced so far.
Real Madrid and Barcelona were strong too,
but they each had their own problems.
As for Dortmund,
their style was very fresh, and Shane really had not met a team before that could raise the match intensity to that level.
He had faced Bayern in the group stage.
But group-stage intensity and knockout-stage intensity were completely different things.
Back then, both Bayern and Atlético still had room to fall back on, and when there is room to fall back on, teams rarely go all out.
But now it was knockout football.
In the knockout stage,
Bayern's and Dortmund's mentality, willpower, and urgency were completely different.
Especially at this crucial sprint-phase of the season, the team's tactical chemistry was also far beyond what it had been at the start of the campaign.
This Dortmund side would absolutely be able to dominate the Bayern team they had met in the group stage—
though, of course, that comparison was meaningless, just a pure apples-to-oranges matchup.
Once the reporters were quiet, Shane finally answered:
"They are very strong. This was a very difficult match. It is a two-leg, 180-minute tie. This was only the end of the first half. We'll wait until we're back at our home ground, and until the match is over, before we see what happens."
With that, he turned and walked away from the pitch.
....
In the post-match media coverage,
both sides' media focused on the Atlético-Dortmund tie.
After all, Barcelona had almost been sentenced to death already.
Bayern reaching the final was the most likely outcome, and if Barcelona had at least managed an away goal—even in a 4-1 loss—Spanish media could still have held onto some hope, because Deportivo had once turned around a 4-1 away defeat at home.
But Barcelona had lost 4-0.
Even the most optimistic Barça fans had gone quiet.
Catalonia's mouthpiece media spent those days trying to rally support for Barça,
hoping they would create a miracle.
But not many believed it.
So now, Spanish football's only hope was Atlético Madrid.
If every La Liga versus Bundesliga clash ended with the Germans advancing,
Spanish football would lose a lot of face.
Spanish media highlighted Atlético's home advantages.
German media, meanwhile, stressed that 1-1 meant nothing, and that Dortmund had scored an away goal, which made them likely to score again.
Both sides' media were busy pumping up their teams.
At that moment it was like two boxers, after the first round, sitting in opposite corners of the cage, gasping and recovering.
...
There were only seven days between the two Champions League semifinals.
And in between, there was also a league match.
The rest time was extremely short.
In a stretch like this, player fitness was a severe test.
That meant rotation was essential.
If you didn't rotate,
the starters could suffer mass injuries, and then everything could collapse at the end of the season.
But Atlético Madrid could not rotate.
Because they were in the most critical stage of the title race.
Especially since,
after returning from Germany,
their next opponent was Real Madrid!
Under those circumstances,
how could they rotate?
This was exactly why Simeone had insisted that Shane had to "control the tempo" away from home.
He didn't want the team to waste too much energy on the road.
And Shane had indeed done that.
With an away goal in hand,
the team had not expended too much energy.
That gave Simeone some confidence.
Even against Real Madrid, he believed the same starting lineup should still be able to hold up.
....
The 33rd-round Madrid derby was undoubtedly one of the matches being watched across all of Spain, and even all of Europe.
After being eliminated by Dortmund,
Mourinho hinted that this would be his last season at Real Madrid.
But for Real Madrid,
the season was not entirely empty.
They had reached the Copa del Rey final, and if they could beat Barcelona there,
they would still have a chance to win silverware.
In fact, they could even send Barcelona into a season of complete failure—if Barcelona also lost the league title race to Atlético Madrid.
But for Real Madrid's fans,
this season as a whole was still very painful.
Whether it was Barcelona winning the league title or Atlético Madrid winning it,
both outcomes felt humiliating.
Especially since,
if they beat Atlético Madrid,
they might end up handing Barcelona the championship on a silver platter...
And if they lost?
They might have to watch Atlético Madrid take the title instead...
Would Mourinho be sacked?
That was almost only a matter of time.
Some reports even claimed that if Madrid lost this match,
Florentino Pérez might fire Mourinho early...
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