DIEGO COSTA scored a double as Atletico Madrid thumped AC Milan 4-1 last night to send the seven-times winners crashing out 5-1 on aggregate and advance to the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time this century.
Costa, who also scored in his side's 1-0 win at the San Siro in the first leg of the last-16 tie, put the Spanish side ahead in the third minute at the Calderon with an acrobatic volley.
Kaka levelled with a header in the 27th before Arda Turan's deflected effort sailed past Christian Abbiati five minutes before half-time to restore the home team's lead.
Raul Garcia headed Atletico's third in the 71st minute before Costa struck again five minutes from time.
"We are grateful for the support of the fans, and the truth is that the team deserves congratulating for the way it has played," Costa said.
"We have done ourselves proud. All teams who reach the quarter-finals are very good. For now we'll just enjoy it."
Atletico, who last reached the quarter-finals in 1997 with a team featuring current coach Diego Simeone, deserved their victory, while Milan's exit means there will be no Italian side in the last eight for the first time since 2009.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article