Silva bullet is so precious for Pep
…but Real still a huge threat after Etihad thriller
In A wonderful game of perpetual, furious motion, for one split second Real Madrid stopped. In that brief moment, Bernardo Silva gave Manchester City the slender advantage they deserved and that may yet steer them to a second Champions League final.
Madrid will throw plenty at them at the Bernabeu, no doubt about that. They threw plenty at them here. Every time City thought they had the game won by a handy two-goal margin, Madrid reined them in. One goal is nothing when a club has Karim Benzema as its striker. He has averaged a goal a game in 41 this campaign. Vinicius Junior is a huge threat, too.
Yet City scored four and could do the same again in the second leg. They are that sort of side. The four could have been eight had City taken their chances. They were the better team but could not put Madrid away and there is no reason to imagine anything but the same frenzy in the second leg a week today.
The final two goals, scored late, summed it up. City thinking they had the job done, Madrid reckoning otherwise.
It was like that throughout the game — City led 2-0 which became 2-1; they led 3-1 which became 3-2; they led 4-2 which ended up 4-3. Madrid trailed for 88 minutes and 27 seconds of this match and yet are somehow still very much in it.
Pep Guardiola’s fury at the missed chances was understandable, particularly in the first half. City had the chance to decide this tie and did not take it. If their campaign ends in disappointment, those will be the moments the manager most regrets.
So this was 90 minutes of high octane, high energy and high quality football — going forward, defensively not so much — but the last two goals both contained elements of good fortune. City’s strike came because Real did not play to the whistle, Madrid’s because the modern rules on handball have little truck with intention or fairness.
There were 74 minutes gone when Oleksandr Zinchenko was spectacularly upended by Dani Carvajal near the edge of the area. Madrid’s players acknowledged the foul and some of them stopped. not all, though.
So there was movement around Silva as he took the ball into the area, some players realising Romanian referee Istvan Kovacs was playing advantage.
Among those at rest, however, was goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and when Silva shot he barely moved. Kovacs was adamant it was a fair goal. City looked to be taking a two-goal lead to Spain.
Yet this is City in Europe and rarely is it easy.
So when Aymeric Laporte rose to head away a standard cross with eight minutes remaining, the ball glanced his head and then an outstretched arm. Penalty said Kovacs. It looked harsh, accidental and unavoidable. But those are the modern rules. Benzema took it. Panenka. Goal. What a stage that set for the return. What a prospect it leaves in store.
Guardiola may not be entirely thrilled by the fun. He often cut a manic touchline figure, even by his standards, particularly in the first half when he realised, like most observers, that this tie could have been pretty much over.
City’s two-goal lead after 11 minutes was not just their quickest such advantage in this competition — and the first time Real had been so rapidly two goals behind — but was accompanied by a series of chances from which Madrid could not have recovered.
Better finishing and decision making was required, but it was the latter that left Guardiola most incensed. Ignoring a team-mate in a better scoring position is, one imagines, close to a capital offence in Guardiola’s mind.
When Riyad Mahrez did not look up to spot Phil Foden in the perfect place to score City’s third after 26 minutes, Guardiola’s reaction was as angry as he has ever appeared on the touchline. Mahrez took on a difficult angle and shot into the side-netting, Guardiola skipping several paces from his standing spot, his eyes wilder, his muscles and veins taut.
Madrid, frankly, did not know what had hit them in those early exchanges. The intensity with which City — and Liverpool — can start a match is arguably unique in the European game.
Madrid could not handle them. In this mood it is hard to imagine who could. So there were just 93 seconds gone when Kevin De Bruyne gave City the lead and what a well-taken goal it was.
Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti would have been seething at the slackness of Madrid’s defending, but that should not detract from the quality of the move.
Mahrez cut in from the right, darting between two snoozing Madrid defenders and skirting Luka Modric. Toni Kroos was also slow to close, allowing Mahrez to whip in a lovely cross. De Bruyne’s run had not been picked up meaning he got the jump on Carvajal, bustling in front of him to divert a header past Courtois.
City kept possession, kept the pressure on, the high press rattled Madrid and, from the next attack, they moved further ahead. Foden on the left laid it inside to De Bruyne and, from his cross, the inform Gabriel Jesus spun a startled David Alaba. Suddenly, he had space and only Courtois to beat but it still took a lovely finish to leave the goalkeeper helpless.
Just six minutes later, Alaba had to hack danger away facing his own goal and after Mahrez’s aberration, a counter-attack in the 28th minute should have given City the advantage they deserved.
Jesus on the right played in De Bruyne through the centre and, unlike Mahrez, he knew where Foden was and where Madrid were not. By the time the ball reached the young man he was in an exclusion zone of space, but steered his shot wide.
It was a huge miss, not least because Madrid’s alarm clocks
had at last gone off and they were waking up. This is a side who lead La Liga by 15 points. As Chelsea found out after taking a three-goal lead at the Bernabeu, once provoked they are no mugs.
Until then, Madrid’s most dangerous player had been City goalkeeper Ederson, whose kicking was substantially off, but gradually they got into the game.
In the 33rd minute, when Ferland Mendy delivered a ball into the box, Benzema made City pay for their wastefulness. He got in front of Zinchenko and delivered the sweetest cushioned volley to a part of the goal Ederson could not reach. It went in off the inside of a post, a fine way to celebrate his 600th game for the club. Only Spaniards have reached that milestone previously.
Incredibly, the second half delivered more of the same.
Just two minutes had passed when Mahrez sped down the right, breaking free of Madrid’s backline and shooting across Courtois to hit a post. The ball flew out to Foden who struck it first time, only for Carvajal to thwart him.
From the next attack, however, better luck. Fernandinho broke down the right — he had replaced the injured John Stones at right back late in the first half — and crossed for Foden in the middle. Carvajal was nowhere this time and his header restored City’s two-goal lead — for two minutes.
More action down Fernandinho’s side, this time the Brazilian being dummied by compatriot Vinicius Junior on the halfway line, who hared towards the City goal, electing to finish the job himself.
With Benzema around, it takes a brave man to do that. But this game was not short of them.