The Real deal Lyon up next as Guardiola edges closer to glory
Champions League: Man City win 4-2 on aggregate
The perfect Pep Guardiola plan for the biggest night of their season propelled Manchester City into the Champions League’s last eight, and showed the old masters of the competition to the door with a haste to which many of this great Real Madrid generation are unaccustomed.
This was arguably Guardiola’s masterpiece in four years in Manchester, a victory schemed over this long summer of football, five months in the making after the first-leg victory, and one in which he seemed to have thought of everything. Real are not accustomed to these kinds of nights, especially when the decisive goals they conceded were partly self-inflicted, both times by the World Cup and multi-champions League winner Raphael Varane.
Self-inflicted or forced to the point of error? Hard to say when City are this relentless. Guardiola has brought them to the boil in early August, and they outmanoeuvred, outfought and eventually eliminated the new champions of Spain. It takes them to Lisbon for the quarter-final a week today, when they will face Lyon, who surprisingly prevailed over Juventus. City have been to semi-finals before but never like this, accompanied by such expectation.
First Raheem Sterling and then
Gabriel Jesus seized upon the weaknesses of this Real side to give City a victory to compare with any they have achieved in this competition. Four years ago they were swatted aside by Real in the last four – this time they beat Real in both legs, but more than that, it felt like this was the Guardiola master plan fully realised.
It was a transformative night for the likes of Phil Foden, who was deployed from the start as a false nine, the position once conceived of by Guardiola for Lionel Messi and the one which perhaps best reflects the disruptive coaching brain of its creator.
It was an outstanding night for Jesus, who created one and scored the other. Kyle Walker played so well it was hard to recall a single successful dribble from Eden Hazard. But none were greater than the peerless Kevin De Bruyne, the restless heart of such a dynamic team.
This was the first Champions League elimination ever visited upon Zinedine Zidane as a manager, his treble Champions League winning side now disintegrating. There was a goal from Karim Benzema to bring the game level in the first half, but really they were never close. Toni Kroos and Luka Modric were swept aside in midfield in the same way they once overwhelmed opponents. Casemiro held on as best he could, but Real were never permitted to settle and rarely had the ball in dangerous positions.
The man they missed the most was a few rows back from the dugout: Sergio Ramos suspended for this game for his red card in the first leg and still issuing instructions to everyone. He bellowed at his teammates and – when that was not enough – unleashed a whistle so shrill that at least half the dogs in
Beswick must have been twitching. Like most of the Real players he was shocked at Varane’s early error that allowed City in for the first goal.
It was a foul-up created by City’s savage press. When Thibaut Courtois had the ball, Real’s centrehalves dutifully split to take it short, although neither really seemed to want it. On this occasion, nine minutes in, neither Eder Militao, who gave it back to his goalkeeper immediately, and certainly not Varane, when he got the ball next via Courtois, looked comfortable.
In the padded seats, Ramos sensed danger. Varane took a touch and Jesus muscled in on it, taking the ball inside and then cutting it back to Sterling. He dispatched his second goal of the tie. Only a risky late challenge in the area from Casemiro, beautifully timed, prevented Sterling getting another.
City were relentless and it felt that another goal might break Real, but it did not come. It meant that the equaliser was a surprise.
Real played through City’s left channel without any real pressure. The Brazilian teenager Rodrygo cruised past Joao Cancelo and his cross to the middle was met with a timeless centre-forward’s header by Benzema.
Guardiola’s players could not stop Real having the ball – in fact they had more of it than most of City’s opposition – although very little of it near the home goal. That is the Guardiola system – if there must be possession for the opposition then it has to be away from danger. On the rare occasions Real did settle into possession in City’s defensive third, Guardiola was even more agitated and not satisfied until the away side were chased away and up the pitch.
As the hour passed and the peril for Real became greater, so they tried the ball over the top more often to the runs of Benzema, and there was no margin for error in defending it, with the Frenchman in his red-hot post-lockdown form. This was the game’s decisive period, and while City missed chances they kept attacking, despite their advantage in the tie.
It was De Bruyne running the show, his ball into Ilkay Gundogan creating a chance for Jesus whose shot Courtois just about brushed over. Then finally, with 22 minutes remaining, came the goal. Substitute Bernardo Silva, on for Foden, played a quick early ball over the top to cause more indecision from Varane. First he executed a weak header he had to correct, although his second sold Courtois just short and in came Jesus with the outside of his right foot to nick it past the keeper. This was the breaking point for Real, and City never let up.