Manchester City 1-1 Real Madrid (3-4 pen.): Talking points as Real end City hopes of treble repeat

On Wednesday evening, Manchester City welcomed Real Madrid to the Etihad for the second leg of their meeting in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, after the first leg in Madrid ended in a 3-3 draw.

Real took the lead through Rodrygo Goes in the 12th minute, and it was Kevin De Bruyne who equalized in the 76th. The contest went into extra time and eventually penalties, where City were ahead after the first round as Julian Alvarez scored his penalty and Ederson Moraes stopped Luka Modric’s. However, Andriy Lunin in the Real goal was the hero of the following two rounds, saving spot-kicks from Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic, while Jude Bellingham and Lucas Vazquez both scored. Phil Foden for City, Nacho for Real, and Ederson himself for City all scored, and the responsibility of taking the decisive penalty fell to Antonio Rudiger. The German defender was very accurate and scored, sending his team into the semifinals.

The game

No team would expect to go to the Etihad and dominate against Manchester City, and Real certainly didn’t presume to. They didn’t exactly willingly go into a low block, not intentionally anyway. They defended as far away from their goal as possible, not falling into the trap of inviting a team like City into their box, but they were still extremely dangerous on the counterattack. Consequently, City dominated the ball for 68% of the 120 minutes played, but the first real chance at either end was Rodrygo’s 12th-minute opener.

Dani Carvajal hit a long pass from deep in his own half and Bellingham showed great skill to control it under pressure upfront. As the City defence retreated to catch up, Bellingham involved Federico Valverde who played it simply to Vinicius Junior on the right wing, and the Brazilian found his compatriot on the edge of six yards. Rodrygo had escaped the attention of Kyle Walker and fired first straight into Ederson, but then capitalized on the rebound.

City’s first chance came seven…

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Author : Veselin Trajkovic

Publish date : 2024-04-18 15:26:00

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