Real Madrid take on Manchester City in the Champions League semi-final first leg on Tuesday. A gala match for a 2022 remake: the two teams then played two high-level matches, and the Merengues won in particular thanks to Karim Benzema. This year, Mancunian Erling Haaland could play the spoilsport.
A year later, we take the same teams at the same level of the competition and we start again. Real Madrid host Manchester City on Tuesday (May 9) at the Santiago Bernabeu for the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. A gala meeting between two successful teams but with diametrically opposed track records on the European scene.
Where the people of Madrid aim to lift a fifteenth Cup with big ears on June 10, the Citizens are still chasing their first trophy in the most prestigious of European competitions. But whoever wins this semi-final, he will still have a lot to do before triumphing against AC Milan or Inter Milan – who meet on Wednesday May 10 in a derby at the top.
Last year, the Citizens had taken the best of the Merengues at the Etihad Stadium (4-3) before Real Madrid does not turn the tide in the return match (3-1). “Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will look for a positive result. The decisive match will be in Manchester, not tomorrow,” said the 1is May Merengues coach Carlo Ancelotti. “We will try to take a small advantage. And not necessarily on the scoreboard: when you have good feelings, that you don’t suffer too much, that you avoid problems and that you create problems for the opponent, it’s also positive.”
This year, the people of Madrid are approaching the first round of this semi-final with renewed confidence at the right time: dropped in the league (3rd at 14 points from FC Barcelona, 1st), they won a twentieth coronation in the King’s Cup, on 29 April, in Seville against Osasuna (2-1) thanks to a double from Rodrygo.
The young Brazilian winger from Real regained his qualities as a finisher at the best of times, and to the great despair of the Citizens: Rodrygo had been their executioner in the return match in May 2022, scoring twice in two minutes in added time (90th, 90th +1) – before Karim Benzema gives the victory to his team in extra time (95th).
The experienced “KB9” and the cyborg Haaland
Besides Rodrygo and Vinicius, the French striker and captain of Real Madrid will also set the tone during the match against Manchester City. “KB9”, named Ballon d’Or 2022 after a stratospheric season, carried his club on his shoulders in the Champions League last year.
But at 35, he is having a mixed season due to several physical glitches – including one that led him to a painful withdrawal for the 2022 World Cup.
That said, Karim Benzema has scored 29 goals in 38 matches played this year, a very honorable balance sheet punctuated by several brilliant strokes: hat-tricks against Valladolid (6-0), Barça (4-0) and Almeria (4 -2), just like his goals against Liverpool in the round of 16 and Chelsea in the Champions League quarter-finals, showed that he had lost none of his qualities as a finisher.
His presence against the Citizens will therefore be decisive on Tuesday, as it had been last year (three goals scored in the two matches). Especially since “KB9” dreams of going a little further into history with the “White House”.
He became, on April 29, the most decorated player in the history of Real Madrid – tied with the Brazilian Marcelo – with 25 trophies won in 14 ans. The Madrid club could win the 100th trophy in their history if they triumph in Istanbul on June 10.
Karim Benzema also recently became the fourth top scorer in the history of the Spanish league (with 236 goals scored) and is, for now, the fourth top scorer in the history of the Champions League (90 goals) – to a Robert Lewandowski unit.
Erling Haaland, who will be the Citizens’ major offensive asset against Real, is still far from the heights reached by the French striker. But at 22, the young Manchester City striker is positioning himself on standards never before seen on the European scene: he has already scored 35 goals in just 27 C1 matches.
The Norwegian cyborg also panics other counters: he has already scored 12 times this year in the Champions League before the double confrontation against Real, and he scored 35 goals (a record) for his first season in the English championship. All competitions combined, Erlin Haaland has 51 goals in 46 matches. No player in the English top flight had scored 50 goals in a season… since 1931.
“Stop a team that seems unstoppable”
With two goals scored in the two matches against Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals, Erling Haaland should be watched like milk on the fire at the Santiago Bernabeu. “He is obviously a very dangerous player, who shows impressive qualities, especially in front of goal. He is an obvious threat,” commented Carlo Ancelotti.
But the Real Madrid coach does not want to sum up the Citizens to this one player: “To speak only of him is to forget a whole team which plays well, which has ideas. (…) We are not preparing a game to stop Haaland, we are preparing a game to stop a team that seems unstoppable. But I think we have the options to play a balanced game and win.”
The Norwegian striker still appears to be the centerpiece that has been missing in the puzzle of his coach, Pep Guardiola, in recent seasons: a goalscorer capable of scoring in the big moments. “I have the impression that the Guardiola – Haaland relationship hasn’t gone too badly so far,” Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos said on Monday.
With Erling Haaland, the Manchester City technician may have found the formula to allow his team to finally lift the only trophy that is denied to him. Since the arrival of Pep Guardiola in 2016, European disappointments have multiplied and the Catalan coach has often been singled out for his tactical experiments which have turned against him.
The quarter-final lost in 3-5-2 in 2020 against Lyon (3-1), or even the final against Chelsea the following year, started without a defensive midfielder, and lost (1-0), were the more stinging. This season, Pep Guardiola has repositioned John Stones, integrated Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland. But he knows that if he does not win the C1, his passage will leave a taste of unfinished business.
With AFP
