Benedikt Howedes: Real Madrid "punished" us

Schalke 04 centre-back Benedikt Howedes has admitted that Real Madrid blew his side away in the 6-1 defeat to the Spanish side in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash.

Howedes said that Real were clinical on the night and were able to punish every mistake that Schalke made, which showed up the limitations of the German side.

"You have to remember that we were playing against one of the best teams in the world," he told UEFA.com. "We started really well and perhaps should have scored, but we didn't, and Real put their first chance away. They have some incredible individual talent up front and they punished each and every one of our mistakes mercilessly.

"We made too many errors in our build-up play. We lost the ball too easily and played silly passes which they were waiting to pounce on.

"Cristiano Ronaldo didn't do much defending on the wing, he just waited for the chance to counter and invariably got the ball. We're competing at an extremely high level here and today we saw where our limits were."

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored a late consolation for Schalke.