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Hans-Joachim Watzke, Borussia Dortmund‘s chairman, locked himself inside a toilet at Santiago Bernabeu as he could not bear to watch the final minutes of his side’s Champions League semifinal encounter with Real Madrid.
The previous season’s German champions almost surrendered their first leg lead as Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid scored two late goals before losing 4-3 on aggregate.
“It seems like we only can do it with drama,” Watzke said on the club’s website.
“For the first time in my life I had to give up due to heart problems. I went to the toilet for the last minutes, locked myself in, covered my ears and looked at my watch. I had all kinds of thoughts going through my head,” he added.
Michael Zorc, director of sport at Dortmund, also admitted that it was difficult for him to contend with the titillating finish, when Karim Benzema and Sergio Ramos scored to put the hosts within a chance of a remarkable fightback.
“In the last minutes I was close to a heart attack,” he said. “But when there is a positive outcome, it’s all good.
“It was great. In the second half we played a really good game. In the space of 10 minutes we had four golden chances. When you don’t take them then you are often punished. That’s why it was really tight again. That was not in the plan. But, in retrospect, it was only a slight deviation from the plan,” Zorc said.
Neven Subotic was one of Dortmund’s star performers on the night. He said after the game: “It was 98 minutes of hard work. I can’t remember the last time I faced such a challenge. Both teams wanted to be in the final.
“After we went 2-0 down I thought: ‘When you clear the ball, then hoof-it as far away as you can’. When I saw it was five minutes added time I thought I would die. But we played down well in the last three or four minutes. The most dangerous phase was the four minutes before stoppage time.”
Dortmund Coach Jurgen Klopp said on Tuesday: “In Wembley, everyone will see we are not going to be satisfied with just being a finalist.”
