Strong, but not completely flawless

Where he excelled...

Howard Webb has a clear body language, he is strong and he is not easily irritated. His foul detection was on the whole well-balanced in comparison to the flow of the match, he hesitated not one moment when deciding and he always tried to calm things down. The offside calls by the assistant referees were to my eye spot on, and he gave some excellent yellows (especially the opener for a nasty tackling by Concentrao). His presence is another plus, his physical fitness is above doubt, and he kind of got away with it tonight as it was not a real catastrophe. But I don't know what had happened if Real would have scored in the first half - his "We are all men and behave ourselves"-approach would have been torn into pieces then - agreed.

Howard, Howard

Where I shook my head more than once or twice was his sheer ignorance of the things that went on around him before his eyes. Sergio Ramos ellbowed Lewandowski at least four to five times to the head, and Webb did absolutely nothing. You warn him once, you book him twice and when he doesn't want to see the light, he's off. The ongoing mingle between Ramos and Lewandowski could have been prevented, Alonso's grip to the throat went unpunished (must be yellow). In line with UEFA's hand ball policy the Hummels conctact towards the end could be a freekick and at least a yellow card.

Real Madrid was not on their heights

Real Madrid played lacklustre for 80 minutes as if they didn't really believe in their chance to win this. They gave away chances they needed to take and when Dortmund denied their gracious offer to finish them off by playing around, the match turned into a real thing but it only lasted for ten minutes plus additional time.

Hindsight (The day after)

I may have been a bit too harsh on Howard in my marks with hindsight as he was better than a bad 7. I still think it wasn't his best match of all times, but he was strong. The comments on ellbowing remain, but I add another mark as I feel that this is a more appropriate judgement.