First Goal Was Vital: Van Nistelrooy

Real Madrid’s winning goal hero against Zenit St. Petersburg Ruud van Nistelrooy highlighted that the key to his team’s victory was the opening goal.

Los Merengues finally snapped their two year winless streak on the road in Champions League football when they edged out Zenit St. Petersburg 1-2 on Tuesday evening.

The Spanish champions took just three minutes to dash into the lead at the Petrovsky  Stadium and Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who scored the eventual winning goal, believed that that early strike was decisive in the victory.

“I am happy to have scored again, but what pleased me more was that we started off the match with an early goal, which was the key to this win,” he told the club’s official website post-game.

“Zenit were very fast and very organized and they pressured us a lot. They are a good side and they will make it hard for the rest of the teams in this group."

“We now have two important matches against Juventus and are only thinking about winning,” Van Gol added.

Rightback Sergio Ramos, who did not have the best of games by his lofty standards also praised the very difficult opposition in a demanding environment.

“We played well and we showed that we can win in any situation,” he started off.

“You saw how difficult it is to play here in this stadium and few teams will be able to win here."

“But we’re taking three points home with us and it was a well deserved victory,” the rightback offered.

Meanwhile, one of his nemesis on the night, Andrei Arshavin refused to blame the defeat on bad luck.

“Real Madrid are a great team and they were better than us tonight,” he told television channel, Sport.

“There’s no point in attributing the defeat to bad luck. They simply played better.”