Cristiano Ronaldo's stoppage-time penalty ends Juventus fightback as Gianluigi Buffon sees red

Real Madrid 1-3 Juventus (Real Madrid win 4-3 on aggregate): The visitors were on course for a stunning turnaround but a late penalty saw Los Blancos through to the last four of Europe

A whole tie can change, and the Champions League can still give us something special we’ve never seen before, only to still end with events we’ve seen so many times: a Cristiano Ronaldo goal, his trademark celebration, a Real Madrid win - but with a twist and a sting in the tail.

Even the competition’s most successful side, who had been through pretty much everything you could conceive of the past 63 years, had never won a game like this. This was proper narrative drama, as a Champions League week high on octane drama went to further extremes, from a sensational three-goal Juventus comeback to the stark set-piece of one shot.

That shot was to be delivered by one of the greatest players in history - just after one of the greatest goalkeepers in history had been sent off on what might have been his last European game. That only added to the tension as Ronaldo was made to wait for Wojciech Szczesny to so slowly get to the line, but, of course, it made no difference. None of it did.

A defiant Juventus had pushed Real to the very brink of what would have been statistically - and emotionally - the most sensational comeback in Champions League history as they somehow made it 3-3 on aggregate, with both sides pushed to the limit. So did the game, but the champions - perhaps predictably - just had more in them.

Juventus struck early through Mario Mandzukic (Getty)

A fair question going forward might now be whether a test as traumatic as this will cause damage to the emotional core of this Real side. The manner of Ronaldo’s powerful penalty, though, suggests not.

The celebrations that followed were a fitting image to compliment the way in which this match reached levels of theatre that even the best fiction rarely can. It really did have everything: defiance, adventure, doubt, shock, an improbable rescue, deep tension, a proper set-piece of a climax and then utter fury to go with exuberant joy.

Juventus will be left with deep frustration following that fury, and not just because of how it ended. There was also what they’d done for the 90 minutes before stoppage time. They had come close to something that truly was unique.

In 63 years of this competition, only 12 sides had overturned a three-goal first-leg deficit. In 63 years, only seven sides had gone through after losing a first leg at home. In 63 years, no one had beaten Real by three goals at the Bernabeu.

Juventus, however, were on the brink of doing all this on 90 minutes. They were doing the impossible.

The bare detail that they actually won this game 3-1 will almost be forgotten now, but so much of this game can’t be as it surpassed the extremes of Roma’s three-goal comeback against Barcelona the previous night.

Juventus got off to an even better start than their Serie A counterparts, scoring after just 75 seconds - rather than six minutes. It was Mario Mandzukic who got his side off the mark, powering the ball past Keylor Navas with a powerful header from a pulsating move and sweeping Sami Khedira cross.

It wasn’t just that the nature of this contest had changed so suddenly, but also that Real’s change in defence had been emphatically exposed. With Sergio Ramos suspended, and Jesus Vallejo replacing, Real seemed to have no answer to the power of Mandzukic in the air. They just didn’t have their absent captain’s command. Chaos seemed to ensue any time it looked like the ball might go there.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Medhi Benatia tussle for possession (Getty)

That was exactly how they got the second goal at the other end of the half, too, having again just swept up the other end of the pitch.

Because in between came the defiance. Of course it came from that Juve defence.

Real’s only response was the routine that has served them so well through this series of Champions League victories. That was to regain command when the ball was on the ground, particularly in the middle of the pitch, through the three players that have been as important to Real as Ronaldo: Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Casemiro.

They did that and began to cause chaos in the Juventus box. Unlike the calamitous first leg, though, the Italian backline didn’t lose control.

They were standing up stronger, while Gigi Buffon was rolling back the years with how he was getting himself down to stop so much - and then how he got up to touch a Raphael Varane header onto the bar.

Gareth Bale rises highest to meet a Real Madrid corner ball (Getty)

Juve had their backs to the goal and byline, but also had their rhythm, as they realised they could rely on their resilience and counter.

Real surprisingly had nothing like that. This was just something the usually assured Bernabeu crowd wasn’t used. Ronaldo was neither getting chances nor space. Gareth Bale was booed and taken off at half-time. Even Kroos and Modric began to misplace passes, to the point the latter remarkably followed Bale onto the substitutes’ bench.

A bigger mistake was to come, all the worse because those earlier warnings again weren’t heeded.

On 60 minutes, the effervescent and yet so efficient Douglas Costa played in another cross. This one was nowhere near as dangerous as Khedira’s, but that didn’t matter. Real were adding to their own problems. Navas somehow spilled the ball, and Blaise Matuidi was left to poke the ball in.

It was quite a goal, it was quite a contest.

Quite the contrast, too. With the tie so perfectly in the balance, the best attack in the world was forced to go fully forward against the best defence in the world, who were getting beaten right back.

Blaise Matuidi handed the visitors their all-important third goal (Getty)

Ronaldo was again moving dangerously, Buffon and Chiellini embracing defiantly with every challenge. We’d seen so many of these images before, but never in this utterly consuming context.

It was only too predictable, then, that a tie like this would go to such unpredictable extremes.

As stoppage time closed to a draw, substitute Lucas Vazquez went down in the box under the clumsy challenge of Mehdi Benatia. Penalty, albeit with a lot of debate - particularly from the Juventus players.

This could have been the ultimate Buffon moment, except he was sent off for remonstrating. The Bernabeu graciously applauded him off, as Szczesny slowly made his way on.

It instead became the ultimate Real Madrid moment, the ultimate Ronaldo moment. There was no doubt about them, no doubt about him. They can go through anything, and still find a more epic way to win.​