”You can only win like that here,” Carlo Ancelotti said after the match. He also sent a message to Bayern Munich, “Real Madrid never dies.” That will be their semi-final opponent, but that’s a distant story after submitting to Manchester City’s siege in a defensively flawless match.
The concentration of the entire white team could well have brought Simeone to tears, who lost that ability in his team years ago. Real Madrid defended everything that Barça and Atlético Madrid were not able to defend 24 hours earlier. A goal from Rodrygo in the 14th set the stage for what was to be the next 106 minutes. What’s more, Real Madrid didn’t set foot in the rival area until the 100th minute and only took a corner for City’s almost 20.
Guardiola did not complain about the white defensive framework. He knows that it’s not his style and that if Ancelotti started it in that match it was because he wanted to come out better off than last year when he conceded four goals for a nefarious approach.
Without the ball, Real Madrid was almost perfect. Only a mistake by Rüdiger on a clearance resulted in De Bruyne’s goal. If the German had not got the ball tangled up in the clearance, City would not have been able to score a single goal. The Belgian had another chance that he sent over the crossbar. Perhaps, he wanted to adjust the ball too much because he thought Lunin would come to stop him.
The Ukrainian is earning a renewal in a big way. Jorge Mendes is rubbing his hands preparing his assault on the Bernabeu offices next summer, but the only thing that remains of all this is that Ancelotti wanted to get rid of him on the American tour and today he has taken the post from Kepa and he is already a hero, no matter what happens in the clean sheet when Courtois recovers.
The Italian coach did not want to make changes. City’s Spaniard, either. Only extreme fatigue caused Vinicius or Rodrygo to come out, in addition to Kroos, what came in was not powder, but substitutes like Modric, Lucas Vázquez or Brahim have something special that does not put them a step below the rest, they are simply starters who sit on a bench where there is no powder, although it was not the best day to put Joselu. There was no need.
Manchester City did everything they could to score the second goal. The statistics are those of a steamroller who, however, met a certain Rüdiger at the controls of the defense and who had the help of Militao, almost convalescing, when Carvajal could no longer. The minutes passed slowly and the last five of extra time were a clamor of players dragged around the field who did not even have Haaland as a reference because the striker got frustrated again against Real Madrid and ended up injured on the bench.
Lunin, Llopis and Kepa decided that the Ukrainian will stay put on Bernardo Silva’s penalty and dive to the right on Kovacic’s. Full of hits. It only remained to put the last one in. The one that should be for an expert like Brahim. A rickety Rüdiger appeared there, again, who picked up the ball and threw it to the inside of the right stick. The ball went in and Real Madrid wrote another historical page of the Champions League. Because the history of this competition, which mistreats its king so much, is written by the white club. There is one chapter left, that of Bayern Munich with the second leg at home and, who knows, if on June 1 the legend will become bigger.
.
