Real Madrid gave up three goals in the span of 11 minutes in the second half but still managed to come away with a 3-4 win in Ukraine, defeating Shakthar Donetsk and silencing critics for the time being. Cristiano Ronaldo was spectacular in this match and was directly involved in each of the four goals – assisting twice and scoring twice.

Madrid dominate early

Luka Modric slipped a pass in towards Ronaldo, took his effort first time and nearly found the back of the net in the opening two minutes of the match. Two minutes later, Nacho made a good run into the box, crossed back towards the middle of the area but Pyatov reacted quickly to stop the danger.

After that, the chances came few and far between before Cristiano opened the scoring 18 minute into the match. Gareth Bale raced to the left side of the eighteen yard box and sent an excellent chip over the Shakthar goalkeeper the Portuguese international slid his shot into the empty net.

A minute beyond the half hour mark Ronaldo nearly scored his second goal but his header had no venom on it and Pyatov was at the right spot to catch the ball comfortably. The first chance for Shakthar came with three minutes before the halftime interval as Bernard played a good cross from the left in towards the far post where Rakitskiy could not direct his header on target, missing to the right.

Two minutes after the restart and Real Madrid have a second through the work of Cristiano Ronaldo and played an inch-perfect pass to Luka Modric who made no mistake with his finish for his first goal of the season in all comps. A third goal came three minutes after the last from Dani Carvajal. He waited on the edge of the penalty area where Ronaldo again laid off a little pass. The German curled his shot into the top left hand corner.

On the hour mark, Kovacic dinked his pass over the top of the Shakthar defense into the path of Bale but Stepanenko was alert enough to track his man into the area to deflect the weak effort away. Fred made a nice defensive stop on Isco in the 68th minute, did excellent to stop Real Madrid's counter by stopping Isco in his track.

Hosts nearly complete comeback

With 20 minutes to go in the match, Real Madrid scored their fourth goal through the combination of Gareth Bale assisting Cristiano Ronaldo again and looked to cruise towards the final whistle.

However, the first goal was scored from the spot when Alex Teixeira placed it above a diving Kiko Casilla. A second goal came off of a corner kick six minutes after the first when Dentinho essentially scored by redirecting a deflected header with his chest.

Alex Teixeira scored his second, adding to his very impressive tally when Taison found him inside the area before getting his bearings and finding the bottom right hand corner.

As a result of this win, Real are guaranteed first in their group and at best for Shakthar is a spot in the Europa League.   

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