LONDON — How the wheel turns in the Champions League. Real Madrid wore golden orange and struck six goals against Schalke in Germany. Cristiano Ronaldo looked imperious and scored twice. Karim Benzema looked predatory and scored twice. Gareth Bale looked no longer the new boy — and scored twice.  And Ronaldo, particularly, might have had more. Madrid might have scored 10. And it is that number — la décima, as it is known — that has obsessed the club ever since May 2002, when Real won its ninth, and last, final in the tournament.  Eleven coaching changes and a turnover of more than a billion dollars’ worth of playing talent has ensued since then. Always the quest has been la décima. Always the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, has justified the spending and the impatience for this title.  Based on this year’s form, Bayern Munich would be the one power capable of standing in Real’s way. But in destroying Schalke on Wednesday night, Madrid exorcised some of its demons about playing on German soil.  “I’m satisfied,” Carlo Ancelotti, the Italian coach of Real Madrid, said at the postgame news conference, once the 6-1 victory in Gelsenkirchen ended. “That was the perfect game. My players played with togetherness, and they played well. We weren’t thinking of our bad run in Germany, we were thinking about giving absolutely everything to win and resolve this tie as soon as possible.”  And Ancelotti arched an eyebrow. That is as animated as he gets, this man who has won the Champions League twice as a player and twice as a manager with A.C. Milan.  Down the corridor in Gelsenkirchen, where Real had laid bare its record of winning only once in 25 previous Champions League matches in Germany, Bale, the new recruit to this strike force, was asked by reporters how it felt to be in this lineup.  He said his earliest memory of the Champions League was watching Zinédine Zidane score against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 final.  That goal must have impressed countless boys just about to enter their teens, as Bale was at that time. It was a volley struck with startling power and sweetness — a volley with the ball at hip height when the ball approached him across his body from the left.  Down in Wales, where Bale was growing up, the sight of that goal was an inspiration and an invitation to work harder than ever on his own skills.  To one day join Real Madrid and to be coached by Zidane — who is now Ancelotti’s assistant — rounds out the dream.  To then form the attack with Ronaldo and Benzema is beyond his boyhood imagination.  “Our attacking trio,” said the master of understatement, Ancelotti, “are very dangerous.” Dangerous? They are devastating.  Schalke is a decent side, fourth in the Bundesliga, which we were told last year was the new force that would dominate Europe for years to come. But Schalke is a young side, a vulnerable one and now a chastened one.  “Cristiano Ronaldo was everywhere,” said Benedikt Höwedes, the Schalke captain at the postgame briefing. “We saw exactly why he’s the world player of the year.”  Indeed, Ronaldo was unplayable at times. The four (or was it five?) step-overs he made with bewildering speed and control during the run for his first goal were eclipsed by the gliding, graceful movement of his second. He also struck a post and missed twice.  Yet it was the combinations from Ronaldo, Benzema and Bale that blitzed Schalke throughout this match. Reports say that Klaas-Jan Huntelaar’s goal right at the end for Schalke was more than a match for any of the Real strikes.  And it was. Huntelaar beat Iker Casillas with a volley in added time that was as perfect in many ways as the Zidane goal of 2002. It was uninhibited and excellent, but a consolation against a majestic opponent that by then was thinking of its next game, Sunday’s Madrid derby against Atlético in the Vicente Calderón Stadium.  In the other match, the first leg of Galatasaray versus Chelsea was played to a 1-1 tie in Istanbul on Wednesday. It was a contest built around the intrigue of Gala’s center forward, Didier Drogba, competing against many of the Chelsea teammates with whom he shared the 2012 Champions League title.  Drogba is still good and still athletic for a man in his mid-thirties. He has the guile and the know-how but is playing on experience rather than the power that he could once summon.  Take sentiment out of it, and what was clear is that the Ivory Coast player is on his last lap. By the time he left the field, to an ovation from the Chelsea bench with 10 minutes left, the game was tied, 1-1. It finished that way, and so now everyone is talking up the return of Drogba to Stamford Bridge, where this contest must be settled.  The odds favor the London side. They did what they had to in Turkey, aided and abetted by a gamble by Galatasaray Coach Roberto Mancini.  Seeking to surprise Chelsea, he fielded two Champions League rookies in Izet Hajrovic, a 22-year-old Bosnian, and Alex Telles, a 21-year-old Brazilian.  By the time Hajrovic was taken out half way through the first half, Gala was a goal down. Emmanuel Eboué lost the ball to César Azpilicueta, who combined with Andre Schürrle down the left wing before cutting the ball back into the six-yard box for a comfortable side-footed goal by Fernando Torres.  So open was Gala’s defense that Chelsea could have scored more. But once Mancini changed tactics, the balance swung in the other direction, and Galatasaray’s big Cameroon defender, Aurélien Chedjou, equalized following a corner kick. Where was Chelsea’s defense? John Terry and goalkeeper Petr Cech were possibly looking for a threat that wasn’t there — for Drogba — while Chedjou was left unmarked.
The Spanish club got a pair of goals each from Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema as it destroyed Schalke, 6-1.