Jose Mourinho got the perfect birthday present as his Real Madrid side gained the upper hand in their King’s Cup semi-final with a 1-0 first leg win at holders Sevilla yesterday.

Reborn French international striker Karim Benzema scored the decisive goal on 15 minutes to make it a happy 48th birthday for Mourinho and give Sevilla, who were furious at not being awarded a goal when the ball appeared to cross the line, an uphill task to reach the final for the second successive season.

Portuguese Mourinho had been given an early birthday present with Togo international striker Emmanuel Adebayor snapped up on loan from Manchester City to bolster his striking options, but Benzema showed he would not surrender his place without a fight.

Benzema had scored the winner in Sunday’s 1-0 home win over Real Mallorca and was congratulated with a high-five from Mourinho on the touchline yesterday.

The match finished with Real goalkeeper Casillas holding his head after appearing to get struck by an object from the crowd as tempers boiled over.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.