THE SILENCER
Guardiola urges City to ignore an empty Etihad and finish off Real Madrid
ONE of the most notable features of a visit to the Santiago Bernabeu is the sheer throng outside the stadium. As the Madridistas wait for the team bus to arrive, it can be almost impossible to take a step forwards.
That was what it was like back in February when Manchester City were there. Now, not just there but everywhere, it is very different. It will not be like that again for a while and may never be quite like that again.
Tonight in Manchester, the Champions League resumes and it is hard not to think about what this occasion could and should have been like. Pep Guardiola’s City team have a chance to take the biggest European scalp of all, that of the 13 times winners. They will have to do it on their own, though, and that remains the challenge.
Guardiola is used to it by now. This is City’s 13th game without supporters since football restarted in England but beyond any doubt it will be the one when they are in danger of feeling it most.
Football without supporters does many things. It reminds us all just how real and persistent the threat of Covid-19 remains.
Wander down the high street — even in lockdown Manchester — and it’s quite possible to forget about the pandemic. It is not possible at the football.
Walking in to City’s stadium can feel like walking in to a hospital at the moment and there is a reason for that.
From a sporting point of view, meanwhile, empty stadia level the playing field. The statistics tell us that and so, over the course of the last couple of months, have our own eyes.
The absence of fans can hurt a home side and this is the fear that stalks City tonight.
As Real’s French defender
Raphael Varane said last night: ‘We are on City’s ground but the Champions League is all about emotion and the fans provide that extra bit of edge. It can be an important factor.’
Guardiola and his players are facing a very good side tonight, even if it is one weakened by the suspension of defender Sergio Ramos. They were better than City for the first hour of what was a poor game back in late winter and if they are allowed to impose themselves like that again tonight, this could be a more difficult task than many imagine.
City’s away goals give them comfort. If they score once more, Real will need to shed any notion of caution and chase the game almost recklessly. Maybe it is this that has decided Guardiola’s strategy for him.
‘We’ve talked of how we can hurt them,’ said Guardiola yesterday.
‘That’s what we have focused on. We want to impose our style on the game and take it to areas where we can hurt them, where our quality can stand out.’
If his players can carry out Guardiola’s instructions, we should be in for a better game than the one we got in Madrid. Back then, City downed Zinedine Zidane’s team brilliantly at the death with two late goals following the introduction of Raheem Sterling as a substitute.
Prior to that, Madrid has wasted opportunities to take a one-goal lead to two and maybe three.
Spanish champions again, Madrid come to Manchester with reputation intact. Zidane’s treatment of Gareth Bale continues to baffle many people as does Hazard’s inability to ever be fit.
Problems like this tend to get buried when you have only lost three games of 38 en route to your 34th league title, so it was strange that Zidane chose yesterday of all days to publicly throw Bale under the bus.
‘What happens in the dressing room stays in the dressing room,’ said Zidane, only moments after deliberately betraying that most ancient of sporting creeds.
Bale’s time in Zidane’s team is clearly done but Hazard’s participation tonight is less clear. Having struggled with an ankle injury all season, the Belgian has not featured consistently. Zidane insists he is fit but it would be a surprise if the 29-year-old began the night anywhere more prominent than the bench.
Such uncertainty and rancour in the Madrid ranks will not discourage City. Not that they would appear to lack confidence anyway.
City’s Spanish midfielder Rodri said: ‘I know we have a better team (than them) but we have to show it. It’s worthless to think that if we can’t do it on the pitch. We have to prove it.’
City’s attacking football was consistently excellent since the restart of the Premier League season and it is worth remembering that they amassed 100 goals in coming second to Liverpool.
They will miss Sergio Aguero tonight — there remains no news on a comeback date — and this will be as big a night for the Brazilian forward Gabriel Jesus as it will be for Guardiola’s often inadequate back four.
A personal view is that if they can defend properly tonight then they will progress. After that, it would be onwards to Lisbon and the final stages of a competition that remains of fundamental importance to Guardiola and his sense of self-worth.
Madrid would be gone and Liverpool have already gone. The field would be wide open. There may be nobody there to witness it, but this feels like one of the most important nights of City’s recent history.