Real Madrid can take another giant step towards defending their Champions League crown when they host Manchester City in Tuesday's semi-final first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Carlo Ancelotti's side topped Group D before sweeping aside English opposition in the form of Liverpool and Chelsea, defeating the former 6-2 on aggregate in the last 16 before hitting the Blues for four without reply in the quarters.
Los Blancos, who are going in search of a record-extending 15th European Cup honour, are evidently no strangers to the bright lights of the semi-finals, where they dashed Man City's dreams of European glory last year by virtue of an enthralling 6-5 aggregate success.
Here, Sports Mole takes a closer look at Real Madrid's record in the European Cup/Champions League semi-finals ahead of Tuesday's visit of the Premier League champions.
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Since the inception of Europe's premier competition in 1955, Real Madrid have progressed to the semi-finals on a staggering 32 occasions, with half of those qualifications coming in the old-style European Cup and a further 16 in the Champions League as it is currently known.
It will come as no surprise to learn that Real's 32 is the most semi-final appearances of any side in the European Cup/Champions League, 12 more than second-placed Bayern Munich, who have 20 to their name.
Sixteen last-four advancements in the Champions League's current format is also four more than closest challengers Bayern and Barcelona, and Real have reached the final 17 times from their 32 semi-final showdowns - nine times in the European Cup and eight in the Champions League.
Each of Real Madrid's first eight semi-final appearances between 1956 and 1966 ended with Los Blancos qualifying for the final, and not until the 1967-68 season were they eliminated from this stage, losing 4-3 to Manchester United over two legs.
That seven-goal loss to the Red Devils would spark a spate of semi-final exits, as Real Madrid lost six of their subsequent seven European Cup ties at that stage, only managing to beat Inter Milan 2-1 on aggregate in the 1980-81 edition before losing to Liverpool to the final.
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Having lost their status as the undisputed top dogs of European football, Real rose from the doldrums to reach the semi-finals in five of their first seven appearances in the new-style Champions League between 1996 and 2003, before failing to progress beyond the quarters in seven successive tournaments.
However, the La Liga champions returned to the final four for the 2010-11 campaign, and they have remarkably progressed to this point in 11 of the last 13 editions of the tournament, the aberrations being a pair of last-16 exits in 2019 and 2020 to Ajax and Man City respectively.
Between 2011 and 2015, Real only prevailed in one of their five successive semi-final contests - beating Bayern Munich 5-0 over two legs in 2014 - but they have since come up trumps in four of their last five showdowns in the last four.
Given their rich history, Real unsurprisingly lead the statistical categories for matches won (27) and lost (22) in European Cup/Champions League semi-finals, as well as scoring (96) and conceding (79) the most goals.
Real's 6-0 success over Zurich in 1964 also remains the biggest margin of victory in a top-level European semi-final, while Karim Benzema has scored eight goals at this stage of the competition, second to Cristiano Ronaldo's 13 in the Champions League alone and third to the Portuguese and Alfredo Di Stefano (11) overall.
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Ben Knapton
