The Madridistas celebrate Zornoza's goal.LEE SMITH / Reuters
Real Madrid entered women's football in 2019, buying the Plaza del Tacón for around 400,000 euros, and two years later they are already in the Champions League.
Doing it faster was almost impossible.
He did it by beating City in the previous round (0-1 in the return leg in Manchester), which was not a way station, the English being reinforced with the former blue Vicky Losada.
A goal from Zornoza one minute before the break and that lucky point to come out alive from two anguishing moments caused by two mistakes by goalkeeper Misa promoted David Aznar's players to the European elite.
A success that represents another reinforcement for Spanish women's football, in full flood with a rising selection and a hegemonic Barcelona in Europe.
The meringues started in England with eight national players.
Levante, however, did not do so well.
The
granota
, who had already lost 1-2 in Valencia, also fell in Lyon (2-1) against the great ogre of this preliminary phase.
The French, champions seven times (five of them consecutively between 2015 and 2021), did not forgive.
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White made the most of his best minutes at the Manchester Academy.
They accelerated in the last quarter of an hour of the first half and, after Nahikari went into limbo for an offside that did not seem, Zornoza punished the weakness of goalkeeper Taieb.
The first goal was timid in an aerial ball and in the later shot of the madridista her hands were folded.
A treasure that had to be preserved. After the intermission, David Aznar's girls backed down and had a hard time. Misa was about to mess it up on two occasions. As soon as he returned from the dugout, he handed it to White two feet from the goal, but instead of shooting, White tried unsuccessfully to connect with Weir so that he could hole out alone. And already in the final stretch, he hesitated in a divided ball that the
citizen
did not take advantage of either
. The locals pressed out of necessity, but, at times, White also looked for problems alone. And, in the middle of the English emujón, Raso did not need any gift to crash a ball on the crossbar midway through the second half.
They were the worst moments for the Madrid resistance, which did not start with three of its pillars: Maite Oroz, Marta Cardona and Asllani, although the latter came out in the last minutes.
Shovel by shovel, reduced the City in the end only to aerial balls, Madrid reached the Champions League.
A great success in its third year of life.
Next Monday, September 13, the draw for a group stage that begins in October.
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