Zinedine Zidane hails "tremendous" players

Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane has lavished praise on his players for turning around Wednesday night's Champions League clash with Sporting Lisbon to collect all three points.

Los Blancos trailed the Portuguese giants entering the 89th minute at the Bernabeu, but Cristiano Ronaldo struck a late equaliser, before Alvaro Morata won it in the fifth minute of additional time.

Zidane claimed that his team got their reward for 'not giving up' and also revealed that he was pleased that the introduction of Morata in the second period paid dividends.

"We are happy because we kept going until the end, we didn't give up. Sometimes you meet an opponent who play very well but our players were tremendous, they made an enormous effort and they got their just reward," Zidane told UEFA.com.

"It's a coach's job to make substitutions and we're happy that they paid off. You make substitutions in order to change the game and that's what happened today. This is Real Madrid and we know we can always turn things around in a minute. We played a little better after conceding and we finally did it."

Sporting had led at the Bernabeu courtesy of a 47th-minute strike from Bruno Cesar, who beat Kiko Casilla with a curling effort from the edge of the box.