{"id":17156,"date":"2024-05-09T03:29:51","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T03:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/joselu-becomes-real-madrids-unlikely-champions-league-hero\/"},"modified":"2024-05-09T03:29:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T03:29:52","slug":"joselu-becomes-real-madrids-unlikely-champions-league-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/joselu-becomes-real-madrids-unlikely-champions-league-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Joselu becomes Real Madrid’s unlikely Champions League hero"},"content":{"rendered":"


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With Real Madrid on the verge of a Champions League exit, they needed to find a hero – and they got an unlikely one with Joselu sending them to the final in dramatic circumstances.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 34-year-old, who had uninspiring spells with Stoke City and Newcastle United, came on in the 81st minute with Real in huge trouble. <\/p>\n

They were a goal down in the second leg of their semi-final with Bayern Munich but Joselu transformed the match as his double sealed a remarkable 4-3 aggregate success.<\/a><\/p>\n

He pounced on a rare error from the usually outstanding Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to make it level in the 88th minute, then did well to steer in a volley from Antonio Rudiger’s square pass in the first minute of additional time.<\/p>\n

Joselu’s second was originally ruled out for offside, only for a video assistant referee (VAR) check to show the Spain international as onside, sparking incredible scenes of celebration and setting up a Wembley final on 1 June with Borussia Dortmund.<\/p>\n

After Karim Benzema, Real’s second highest goalscorer of all time, moved to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad last summer, Real signed Joselu on loan from Espanyol.<\/p>\n

He scored 17 goals for Espanyol in 2022-23 and has now scored 17 times for Real in 2023-24 from 46 appearances, with 30 of those coming as a substitute.<\/p>\n

England midfielder Jude Bellingham hailed his team-mate, saying: “I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll be sleeping much tonight. He deserves it all. He has been an amazing member of the squad throughout the whole season. This is his night.”<\/p>\n

Joselu said even he could not have imagined this scenario: “You always dream of this kind of performance, but not even my most beautiful dreams are as big as what happened.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know anything about being a hero, but I’m very happy. It was incredible, something spectacular. This team never gives up, it’s in its blood to fight to the end and that’s what we’ve done.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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With Real Madrid on the verge of a Champions League exit, they needed to find a hero – and they got an unlikely one with Joselu sending them to the final in dramatic circumstances. The 34-year-old, who had uninspiring spells with Stoke City and Newcastle United, came on in the 81st minute with Real in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17158,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17156\/revisions\/17158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}