With an excellent performance in their first leg against Liverpool at the Estadio Di Stefano, Real Madrid hold a 3-1 lead ahead of this Wednesday night's second leg at Anfield. However, this is a result that Los Blancos haven't been able to see over the line several times in the past.
Over their history, Real Madrid have taken a 3-1 first leg lead into an away European second leg on 10 occasions and have only progressed six times out of these 10 ties.
On their way to winning five in a row at the beginning of the European Cup in the 1950s, this scenario occurred twice. In 1956/57, Real Madrid defeated Manchester United 3-1 and then earned a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford to progress 5-3 on aggregate, going on to win the competition. In 1959/60, they won both legs of their semi-final against Barcelona 3-1 to earn a commanding 6-2 aggregate victory, again turning that into silverware.
The first time Real Madrid lost after a 3-1 first leg home win was in 1971/72, when PSV Eindhoven won the second match 2-0 at home to progress on away goals in the UEFA Cup.
Los Blancos suffered a similar fate in the 1978/79 European Cup when Grasshopper also won the second leg 2-0 at home. Then, in the 1981/82 UEFA Cup, Kaiserslautern thrashed Real Madrid 5-0 to make the Spanish side's 3-1 first leg victory redundant.
Real Madrid got back to winning ways in the 1982/83 European Cup Winners' Cup, winning their second leg against Hungarian side Ujpesti Dozsa 1-0 to round out a 4-1 aggregate win.
Their next 3-1 experience was in the 1992/93 UEFA Cup quarter-finals against PSG, as the 3-1 first leg victory was more than matched by a 4-1 triumph by the French side in Paris.
Since then, though, Real Madrid have always gone through after taking a 3-1 lead into the second leg. They did so in the epic 2002/03 Champions League tie against Manchester United, with a 4-3 defeat in the second leg enough to progress.
They also did so twice more during their Champions League three-peat. After winning both legs against Napoli by a 3-1 scoreline in 2016/17, that was followed up in 2017/18 as a 3-1 first leg win over PSG was matched by a 2-1 win in Paris.
Now, Zinedine Zidane will hope to engineer another knockout tie victory after a 3-1 first leg win.