Meltdown in Madrid
City seconds away from final...but they blow it!
REAL MADRID struck three times in five minutes to seal a stunning fightback and reach the Champions League final last night.
Manchester City led 4-3 from the first leg and Riyad Mahrez made it 5-3 on 73 minutes. But, in added time, Rodrygo scored two goals in 90 seconds to ensure extra time. Then Benzema scored a penalty five
minutes into extra time to seal City’s fate.
THE Santiago Bernabeu is currently not the place it was once. Real Madrid are currently in the process of a £200million rebuild. There are several large building sites outside. There is scaffolding protruding from the corners.
But there are some things about the football in Madrid that don’t change. When the fires of a Real Madrid team are lit then there is not a place like it in European football.
This is not a classic Real team. They had not managed a single shot on target until the one-two from substitute Rodrygo late in normal time sat Manchester City on the seat of their pants and presented us with an extra period that had hitherto simply not seemed possible.
However, this was a classic Madrid occasion, a night to remind us that the Champions League is everything to this great institution. In the end it produced another classic football match and it will take City some time to work out just how their opponents edged it.
For almost 90 minutes, it was almost perfect for City. They had walked in to heat of the Bernabeu and seemed set to walk out again without breaking sweat.
It had been a mature, composed and an almost perfect performance from Guardiola’s team. But by the end — with his team beaten — Guardiola was left trying to understand a turnaround the likes of which even he had never previously seen.
Less than a minute had passed and Real’s young Brazilian Vinicius Junior was trying to lift the home crowd, waving his arms at the upper tiers after winning a free kick. It was unnecessary, though. This old place was a melting pot of anticipation for the 30 minutes that preceded kick-off.
Before that, the Madrid supporters had made their presence and their feelings felt in the streets outside. This was the 31st time Real had reached the semi-finals of this competition in all its various forms. They have lifted the trophy 13 times.
The grey shadow of the trophy displayed by supporters holding coloured cards in the stand opposite the dugouts looked very nice but was not really required. This is a club that has the European Cup written through its very core. They do not grow tired of their favourite competition in the Spanish capital. The Madridistas see this one as belonging to them and it is not hard to understand why.
Two hundred and fifty miles to the east of here on the night before, Villarreal had gone after a fairytale against Liverpool in the second leg of the other semi-final.
It was gripping, dramatic stuff but it was a tilt at real prominence that ultimately had failed.
This was different. For City, this was a visit to the home of footballing royalty, to the turf of one of the sport’s great institutions. Outside the stadium before kick-off, the Madrid supporters gathered in a huge throng, filling the streets on all sides of the Bernabeu for as far as it was possible to see. When the Real coach inched its way forwards, the noise was deafening.
Inside and above was the scaffolding and the new structures that tell the story of the £200m renovation of this famous stadium. It is a rebuild that Real cannot really afford. It is being paid for entirely by borrowed money. But Real are seemingly intent to continue behaving like a big club even if the collapse of the European Super League and the after-effects of the Covid pandemic have altered their financial circumstances a little.
On the field, this had to be one of their great European nights if they were to progress. They had chased shadows at the Etihad a week earlier and somehow managed to come away trailing by only a solitary goal. That had given Ancelotti’s team a chance but City possess the better players and as such Real still had a sizeable challenge to overcome.
They were menacing early on. Karim Benzema, deadly a week earlier in scoring twice, missed with two early chances. Vinicius, so full of pace and directness, was hungry for the ball but here he was
matched for speed by the returning City full back Kyle Walker. The England defender had an excellent first half.
What Real were not, on the whole, was incisive. Having scored three times from limited possession in Manchester, here they could not fashion a shot on target despite spending so much more time with the ball.
City were composed and hungry to break when they could, but happy to soak the energy and the emotion from their opponents.
Indeed, if the first game had resembled something of a shootout, this one turned out to be nothing of the sort. It was cagey and tense and the sense of jeopardy only increased the longer it went on. A goal for either side felt as though it would be enough to tip the balance and as such, it felt like a traditional semi-final.
That first goal went to City, but it wasn’t enough. High up in the corner of this great stadium, a tiny piece of Manchester contemplated what could have been.