Manchester City 4-2 Real Madrid (De Bruyne 2′, Jesus 11′, Foden 53′, Silva 74′ | Benzema 33′, pen 82′, Vinicius 55′)
ETIHAD STADIUM — The revenge movie has become popular in modern times, the story depicting a main protagonist who relentlessly refuses to give up, refuses to be killed, refuses to stop until they have had their revenge.
And it’s as though this group of Real Madrid players have channelled that energy into the Champions League this season. They trail Manchester City by a goal after a simply extraordinary game of football and cannot be written off.
They are John Wick avenging his dead puppy, they are The Equalizer seeking revenge for the mistreated. They are as stone cold as Karim Benzema’s penalty to leave Real Madrid bruised and battered but somehow only one goal behind in this semi-final.
Yep, of course.
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 26, 2022
Of course Benzema delivered a panenka in a Champions League semi-final ????
This game really has it all! It's now 4-3! #UCL pic.twitter.com/TMkdfmveuC
Manchester City had been in the mood from the off. A goal in 93 seconds followed by another less than 10 minutes later. Riyad Mahrez with a dribble inside between five Real Madrid players before curling the ball into Kevin De Bruyne’s run that was so late and from so deep that he was several yards onside and being trailed by Real Madrid’s striker before he stooped and guided the ball past the dive of Thibaut Courtois with his head.
It was another in-swinging delivery – this time from De Bruyne from the other side – that created the second, the ball dropping to Gabriel Jesus who left David Alaba on the floor before side-footing past the helpless Courtois.
De Bruyne purred between Real players. Mahrez tied them in knots with his feet. Not to be outdone, Phil Foden chased a high ball that dropped from the moon and landed on his toe tip. Real Madrid – City’s players, even – were caught out by the astonishing control, the slow-motion replays showing Foden’s face contorted as though twisted by several gs. Foden thrust a ball low across the six-yard box that beat Courtois’s dive before it was nervously thrashed away by a defender.
Two ahead, City broke three-against-one. Mahrez had Foden free or De Bruyne on the cut back but fired into the side-netting. Guardiola exploded from the dugout as though his side were several goals down, not two up.
But Guardiola was well aware a lead against this Real Madrid team means nothing, that this Real Madrid team brush aside deficits with disbelieving arrogance. A lead meant nothing in the last two rounds and could still mean little when City travel to the Bernabeu next week.
Real were two down in the last 16 against Paris Saint-Germain with 30 minutes remaining of the tie and away from home before a Benzema hat-trick that began on 61 minutes and concluded 17 minutes later hauled them through.
In the quarters they were three-nil down at the Bernabeu and about to throw away a first-leg lead against Chelsea before Rodrygo took the tie to extra time and Benzema dragged them through again.
They removed lodged bullets and stitched up knife wounds and went again.
IT HAD TO BE HIM!
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 26, 2022
Karim Benzema halves Man City's lead with a lovely instinctive finish ????#UCL pic.twitter.com/JrFK1faTvN
Three times they were two goals behind last night and three times they reduced the deficit to one. There were flashes of danger even before they scored, signs of the unexpected that was to come. Benzema’s whipped ball that Alaba planted an inch the wrong side of Ederson’s left post on the half-hour.
The mistake from Ruben Diaz that almost resulted in an own goal. When the line-ups were revealed you worried about what Vinicius Junior on Real’s left might do to City’s makeshift right-back John Stones, but it was Dias with the first major error, caught on the ball as Ederson rolled the dice out from the back before accidentally diverting the ball past his goalkeeper and watching on as it rolled agonisingly towards goal before bouncing back out off the post.
The ball came from City’s right side from Ferland Mendy and gave Real Madrid and Benzema the goal they really had no right to score, the world’s most in-form striker volleying past Ederson from nowhere.
It was hard to tell if Stones was simply unable to continue due to the minor injury he carried into the game or if Guardiola had given up watching Real attack down that flank through the gaps in his fingers but the England defender was hooked well before the half-time whistle.
What could have fitted comfortably in five or six games of football all arrived in the first half. And didn’t stop there. Two minutes into the second half Jesus struck the post then Foden’s follow-up was blocked on the line.
They were two goals ahead again when Foden headed in Fernandinho’s cross but it lasted all of two minutes before Vinicius Junior’s five seconds of pure wonder: letting the ball run through his and, in turn, Fernandinho’s legs on halfway before hurting up the pitch so quickly nobody could catch him.
City in front again, on 74 minutes, Bernardo Silva burying a shot into the top left corner, but there was Benzema, eight minutes from time, clipping the penalty down the middle. Not quite The Equalizer, but enough to give them every chance in Madrid.
from Football | News and analysis from the Premier League and beyond | iNews https://ift.tt/45bjYAE
Post a Comment