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Global Soccer: Wolfsburg’s Hard Work Earns Upset Over Real Madrid

LONDON — Zinedine Zidane is becoming a proper coach now.

Last Saturday, his Real Madrid team won a hard-fought victory over Barcelona in the Camp Nou stadium; five days later, Real was beaten close to humiliation at Wolfsburg in the Champions League.

“That’s football,” Zidane reflected after Wednesday’s 2-0 loss in Germany. “That’s what happens when you don’t play with intensity from the start.”

Along the corridor, in front of another set of microphones, the Wolfsburg coach, Dieter Hecking, was having his say. “We fought, we worked, we had the luck and the support to achieve a deserved win,” he said.