by Pep Guardiola had spoken about the need to suffer before this game. Okay. It’s a deal. This was a thrilling, exciting blue-sky shift of a football game, one that Manchester City didn’t deserve to lose, but that always felt like it was slipping from their grasp even during the second half when City seemed to be in great shape . slowly, carefully, methodically pulling the legs out of the Real Madrid team.
There will now be no treble double after Madrid’s win on penalties. But City still played as European champions for long periods. They took Madrid into a terrible place. These are not footballers who are used to chasing and covering, waiting for the blow to fall. At times it felt like Real spent the last hour of this game desperately trying to bring it back to their tiny, corrugated-roofed ground.
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Even the shoot out was a strange affair. Bernardo Silva made an offensive attempt. Mateo Kovacic beat the goalkeeper. Ederson scored. Antonio Rüdiger slotted the winner and celebrated with a power-slide across the Etihad turf.
At that point it was hard not to wonder exactly how City managed to lose. Undoubtedly there will be blame to be taken, even if it feels a little unfair at the end of a game that could just as easily have been City’s. But then, this was the kind of occasion that Erling Haaland, for example, was bought to make a difference.
Haaland’s game doesn’t look great in numbers: five shots, one on target; five passes in 90 minutes. But he actually played pretty well by his own recent standards. He looped a header over the bar. He bullied Nacho a bit, using his physicality as a pressure weapon, which he didn’t always do.
But it is still true that Haaland has not scored a goal for City in any of these key spring games in the last two years. He retired on 90 minutes with one goal from open play in his last nine games for club and country. Haaland is a footballer who is in the spotlight to get the upper hand. And the one thing City was missing here is edge.
This was just to do it. Jack Grealish ran a lot, and he also stopped and jinked inside a lot. He has one assist in the Premier League this season. Phil Foden carried the threat at the back of the field but was on the edge here. Kevin De Bruyne did his best to make the difference and it was fascinating to see him putting his shoulder to the wheel of this game, running up and down the scales, the music still there, maybe not as accurate these days, his contribution is as much an act of will as inspiration.
Was there something to be done in the absence of John Stones? Probably not. There was a faint sense of Pep’s knock-on energy ahead of kick-off with the news that Guardiola had left Stones out of the starting XI. Was this too much of an overthinking thing? Not really. Manuel Akanji was a straight swap. We are an afterthought case these days. If anything we are thinking, four big halves and a goal man.
It was Madrid who settled quicker, taking the lead with a goal that depended heavily on Jude Bellingham’s beautiful touch in the center circle, pulling the ball out of the sky with a cushioned half-plane trap and waving the ball to Vinícius Júnior on the right. He measured the perfect snaking cross for Rodrygo, who flicked the ball at Ederson, then slid the rebound into the corner.
And Madrid were good in the first half hour. Carlo Ancelotti turned his touch line, all in a black shirt, white shirt, big three-quarter length woolen coat, he looked like a billionaire businessman. The blue shirts sat deep, unfazed by City’s stretch of the field, ready to play in small packs when they took the ball.
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The weather changed at the break. City came out like a train, high pressure. Suddenly, real goalkeeper Andriy Lunin was hitting in the classic “European” style so popular with 1980s TV commentators.
Still City was just a little off. The final passes were superb. No one got their moment enough. Guardiola’s first substitution was crucial. Jérémy Doku came on with 72 minutes gone. Four minutes later he was too quick in the smallest of spaces, his toes hitting the turf, making way for a low and hard cross. De Bruyne took Rüdiger’s clearance and finished beautifully, shifting the angle of his foot to cut the ball high into the roof.
By then Madrid had gone into a very deep defensive hole. It was gripping, grueling, agonizing stuff, football as staccato attrition. Chances came and went. City had 33 shots, only eight of which were on target. There is no real story in their victory, beyond a familiar understanding of Real Madrid’s own will in power; and of course, that missing edge.
