A furious Antonio Rudiger angrily rejected a gesture from David Alaba at the full-time whistle as Real Madrid broke Chelsea hearts.
The Blues travelled to the Bernabeu for the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final clash on Tuesday night. For a long period, it looked as if Thomas Tuchel's men would be able to successfully pull off a famous comeback.
Karim Benzema's hat-trick at Stamford Bridge had put Los Blancos in control of the tie, but Mason Mount fired in after 15 minutes to pull Chelsea back into the game. The visitors continued to press for what would be the equaliser, but it took until six minutes after half-time for it to come.
Tuchel's men were awarded a controversial corner and Rudiger rose highest to head home. Timo Werner then stayed cool to cut inside two Madrid defenders before seeing his deflected shot give Chelsea the lead.
But that proved to be the high point for the Blues, with Rodrygo levelling the tie five minutes after Werner's goal by volleying in from Luka Modric's exquisite pass. And Madrid won it in extra-time when Rudiger's slip allowed Benzema the time to power a header past Edouard Mendy.
Chelsea were inconsolable at the full-time whistle, with many of the Blues squad dropping to the ground. Rudiger was one of the players who fell to the turf after seeing his side dumped out.
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Madrid star Alaba moved towards the German and attempted to pull him up to his feet. Having got up, Rudiger immediately pushed Alaba away before releasing a scream of frustration at Chelsea's defeat.
Alaba appeared to be confused by Rudiger's reaction, before moving on to shake hands with Rudiger's team-mates. Many of the other Madrid players celebrated wildly while Chelsea's stars were left to reflect on a disastrous first-leg performance.
Rudiger remained proud of his team-mates for the way they fought back into the tie. But he blasted the costly errors that ultimately led to Chelsea crashing out and subsequently relinquishing their European crown.
“The positive is that we didn’t give up and not many teams can come here and dominate them as we did. But over the two legs, if you make the type of mistakes that we do, you get punished," Rudiger told BT Sport.
“That was the game plan, to find the No10s with Ruben [Loftus-Cheek] and Mason between Casemiro finding space. We found it, we got the goal. We controlled it, we didn’t panic and I think we did it quite well. In the second-half, we scored goals.
"We did everything we could, but as I said over the two legs if you make these mistakes - you get punished. It was a do or die for us, I think before the game not everybody thought we would make it 3-0 but then the individual class comes to light with Modric and Benzema. Now we are [out].”
