- FC Sheriff Tiraspol produced one of the biggest upsets in
Champions League history on Tuesday by beatingReal Madrid . - The Moldovan side ran out 2-1 winners thanks to a stunning late strike from Sebastien Thill.
- "It's the best and most important goal of my career, that's for sure," said Thill.
FC Sheriff Tiraspol produced one of the biggest upsets in Champions League history on Tuesday night by beating 13-time winners Real Madrid 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu.
The minnow from the tiny Eastern European nation of Moldova went ahead against Madrid in the 25th minute through Jasurbek Yakhshiboev's header.
Karim Benzema levelled for Madrid from the penalty spot, but Sebastien Thill snatched victory for the visitors in the final moments with a stunning strike from long range.
"It's the best and most important goal of my career, that's for sure," said Thill after the match. "The side were so brave with how we played and luckily enough I was able to score a bit of a stunner.
"After this match, we all went crazy. There are a lot of foreigners in the club, we come from all types of countries. It's our strength."
-Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) September 28, 2021
Sheriff and Madrid are worlds apart in terms of the value of their squads.
Madrid's superstar-laden team is, according to Transfermarkt, worth an astonishing $966 million. Sheriff's squad, on the other hand, is worth a mere $15 million.
As expected, Madrid dominated the game, enjoying 76% possession and having 31 shots - 11 of which were on target.
But Carlo Ancelotti's side couldn't find a way through Sheriff keeper Georgios Athanasiadis, who produced a number of marvelous saves to keep his side in the tie.
And Sheriff were ruthless going forward, scoring twice from just three shots on target.
After the final whistle, Ancelotti said he was "a little sad" as he felt his team "deserved to win."
"You could say we had bad luck, we lost the game on the small details, they scored their goals on the counter-attack and from a throw-in," the Italian said. "We had a lot of shots at goal but sometimes luck deserts you in games.
"Everything went well for them; everything went wrong for us."
Sheriff's match against Madrid was its 10th in the Champions League this season having come through four rounds of qualifying to reach the group stage for the first ever time.
Yuriy Vernydub's side beat Shakhtar Donetsk in its first Group D match, and the remarkable victory over Madrid means it now leads the group, which also contains Italian giant Inter Milan, which it will play next.
"Our attention now turns to Inter and we'll work hard in order to ensure we keep getting positive results," Sheriff captain Frank Castaneda said.
"We are dreaming of getting into the last 16 and that's our objective."