CSKA Moscow put in an “inexcusably” error-strewn performance against Real Madrid in their 4-1 Champions League defeat, CSKA captain Sergey Ignashevich said Thursday.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored two of Real’s goals as CSKA crashed out of the Champions League 5-2 on aggregate Wednesday.
The team “made a lot of mistakes” and missed easy chances, Ignashevich said on his website.
“That means not scoring in simple situations, and [mistakes] in defense too. In a match against a team like Real, that’s inexcusable.”
CSKA midfielder Zoran Tosic found the net with a long-range effort on 77 minutes to cut Real’s lead to 3-1, but Ignashevich said this did not give the Moscow team any hope of a comeback.
“After Tosic scored one goal, we didn’t get any hope,” he said, adding that the match had “ended” when Kerim Benzema scored Real’s third goal seven minutes earlier.
“I knew that it would be almost impossible to score two goals, but we tried to put all our effort into the last 15 minutes.”
The result was the second time in three years that CSKA had been knocked out of the Champions League by a team coached by Jose Mourinho, after losing to Inter Milan at the quarterfinal stage in 2010.
CSKA are second in the Russian Premier League, six points behind leaders Zenit St. Petersburg.
