Borussia Dortmund 1 – 3 Real Madrid – Three Takeaways from the UCL win.

Real Madrid defeated Borussia Dortmund in decisive fashion in the Champions League. Here are three things we learned from the match.

Bale’s back! If he stays fit, that is.

Gareth Bale has been taking a lot of heat lately from pundits and fans alike. Bale’s recurrent injury issues have damaged his reputation, and his inability to ever fully recover last season made many wonder whether his best times at Madrid had come to a finish.

Even I, a total Gareth Bale fanboy and all around apologist for the Welsh Dragon, began to wonder whether we would ever see the kind of Gareth Bale that took away Marc Bartra’s dignity in the Copa Del Rey or scored the go-ahead goal in the Champions League final.

But if the match against Dortmund is any indication, we may be starting to see the good old Gareth Bale again. Bale was ferocious this match. His intelligent movement and one-touch finish off of Carvajal’s cross for his goal was a thing of absolute beauty. And he is starting to form a very dangerous partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo playing two up top in the absence of Karim Benzema.

Unfortunately, it’s not entirely clear whether Bale is truly done with his niggling injury issues. Bale was subbed off late into the match with what appeared to be cramps. It didn’t seem like he was injured, but Bale has earned enough of a reputation for being injured that you can’t blame me for being scared about it at this point.

Let’s hope Bale can carry on without any serious injury problems. He struggled last season in finding his form, so it would be terrible for him to take a step backwards now that he seems to be finding it again.

Madrid conquers Dortmund’s German fortress

Germany is not a kind place for Real Madrid. While Madrid have had some recent successes in Germany, against Bayern Munich in particular, Germany has historically been a difficult place for Real Madrid to find a victory.

Signal Iduna park was no exception. Real Madrid had never won a match before at the Westfalenstadion. That was, until Zinedine Zidane and his band of merry men rolled into town.

As I wrote before the match, Borussia Dortmund was in fine form coming into this match, having their best start ever to the Bundesliga season. They had only conceded one goal in the league this season.

It seems that what applies in the league does not apply in the Champions League, a factor that was true for both Madrid and Dortmund. Real Madrid, who have looked woeful thus far in La Liga, came for blood today, whereas Bundesliga’s leaders Dortmund looked outmatched.

Real Madrid may have beaten their German bogey. Adding a decisive victory over Dortmund to their CV following their recent thrashings of Bayern Munich should finally put to bed the idea that Los Blancos can’t play in Alemania.

The referees were bad, but they were bad for everyone.

The referees were really.

But… at least they were consistent?

The only people who have a legitimate complaint about the referees are neutrals for making them watch such bad decisions. Both teams benefitted tremendously from bad refereeing decisions at different points in the match.

First of all, Sergio Ramos probably should’ve gotten a red card and a penalty for this handball in the box. It was really blatant. That’s a bad miss from the referee, and would’ve radically changed the course of the game. Gotta feel bad for Dortmund there.

But then the referee decided to try to make up for his past mistake by booking Real Madrid players with reckless abandon. Luka Modric got a yellow card for time-wasting… or something…

Having Modric on a yellow card for the majority of the match was not ideal, in the least bit.

Bale also had his legs taken out by a Dortmund player in the box for what should have been another clear penalty. But alas, it was not to be.

It’s definitely true that the refs were poor. But for either fan base to be complaining that the ref rigged the game against the other seems a a bit far fetched. I’ve seen both Madrid fans and Dortmund fans complain that they were the true victims of the referee’s wrath. If we’re all being honest, though,  it was just bad refereeing all around.

Next: Player Ratings for Real Madrid's 3-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund

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