WOLFSBURG, Germany — Wolfsburg caused the biggest upset of this season’s Champions League with a 2-0 victory over record 10-time winner Real Madrid in the first leg of their quarterfinal Wednesday.
In Wednesday’s other match, Manchester City claimed a vital edge in the quarterfinal tie against Paris St Germain after grabbing two away goals in a scrappy 2-2 first leg.
Making only its second appearance in the competition and playing its first quarterfinal, Wolfsburg outmuscled and outran the Spanish giant to give itself a clear chance of advancing after next Tuesday’s second leg at the Bernabeu.
“We are in a good position, we can always score a goal,” Wolfsburg’s coach Dieter Hecking said. “We wanted to unnerve them a little, and we succeeded.”
Ricardo Rodriguez converted a penalty in the 18th minute and Maximilian Arnold added the second in the 25th as the home side used counterattacks to devastating effect, dealing Madrid its first defeat in the competition this season. Wolfsburg has won all five home matches.
Cristiano Ronaldo had a goal disallowed for offside in the second minute and the Madrid star had little chance of increasing his competition-high tally of 13 goals after that.
“We didn’t get into the game well,” Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said. “But we still have 90 minutes at home, we have to stay calm.”
Madrid came into the match following a 2-1 win over Barcelona in the Spanish league “clasico,” while Wolfsburg is struggling in the Bundesliga. It was beaten 3-0 by Bayer Leverkusen last weekend, having previously lost one and drawn the other of its two league games before that.
“We knew it would be difficult. Wolfsburg got better into the match. We had our difficulties, we lacked intensity and movement. We didn’t expect to lose 2-0,” Zidane said. “Our second half was better.”
Wolfsburg took the lead when Casemiro upended Andre Schuerrle with a rash tackle. Rodriguez sent Kelor Navas the wrong way from the spot.
The second goal came soon afterward. Julian Draxler cut inside form the left and squared the ball to Bruno Henrique, whose cross allowed Arnold to tap in from close range.
In Paris, PSG, playing in its fourth straight quarterfinal in the competition, fell behind when Kevin De Bruyne opened the scoring in the 38th minute, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic capitalized on a City blunder to level, having earlier missed a penalty.
The home side, which had exited at this stage for the last three seasons, then took the lead through Adrien Rabiot just before the hour but Fernandinho made it 2-2 after benefiting from a PSG mistake.
City, which is playing in the quarterfinals for the first time, will host PSG at the Etihad stadium next Tuesday, where boss Manuel Pellegrini is hoping for more of the same.
“We have to keep that mentality for the second leg,” he said. His PSG counterpart Laurent Blanc, however, was left to rue a disappointing display.
“It’s not a good result, we made too many technical mistakes,” the former France center back said.
