Cape Town - Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane says that his side's sequence of 30 unbeaten outings provides motivation each time they play.
Real defeated Sporting 2-1 at the Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon on Tuesday night, with Karim Benzema netting a late winner after Adrien Silva's 80th minute penalty had cancelled out Raphael Varane's first-half goal.
"What we want is to continue to do what we are doing, knowing that there are moments during the game where things are not going to go for us," Zidane said after the Group F win.
"To have gone so many games without losing is an extra motivation and we want to keep moving forward knowing that when you win matches, you go out more motivated next time," he explained.
Zidane was naturally happy with his side's efforts in Portugal.
"We had our difficult moments in the game, but that is normal," he said. "In the previous game against us Sporting played with the same intensity and they didn't drop their heads after going behind.
"But we managed to score a wonderful second goal through Karim Benzema. It was important that we won here; we achieved what we came to get. We are going to play a final against Dortmund now."
Dortmund, who romped to an 8-4 win over Legia Warsaw, travel to Madrid next month, with the winner to claim top spot, although the visitors have a two-point advantage in the case of a draw.
Madrid's next outing is against Sporting de Gijon in La Liga on Saturday.