Real Madrid finally conquered the Etihad and will be in the Champions League semi-finals for the twelfth time in the fourteen most recent editions of its favorite tournament, the last four consecutively. Rüdiger, who took the last penalty, and Lunin, who stopped two shots in a row with Slavic coldness, completed Manchester City’s regicide. Every time the Whites have faced the defending champion under the current format, they have knocked him down and then taken the crown. They are better kingslayers than Jaime Lannister himself, the famous character from ‘Game of Thrones’ whom Chamartín’s squad leaves behind.
The ‘sky blues’ subjected Carlo Ancelotti’s team to an incessant siege for almost the entire match, but ended up succumbing in the penalty shootout to an indestructible team that displayed a moving exercise of courage in the Mancunian venue, desecrated 2,037 days later in the maximum continental competition, to settle accounts for the 4-0 of last year.
It is a shame that the draw paired Real Madrid and Manchester City in the quarterfinals because the Champions League thus lost the possibility of witnessing a memorable final between the two best teams, by far, on the Old Continent. Whites and ‘sky blues’ fought another extraordinary fight at the Etihad, less frenetic than the one at the Santiago Bernabéu but equally indelible.
Manchester City
Ederson, Walker, Akanji (Stones, 112 minutes), Ruben Dias, Gvardiol, Rodri, De Bruyne (Kovacic, 112 minutes), Bernardo Silva, Foden, Grealish (Doku, 72 minutes) and Haaland (Julian Alvarez, 91 minutes). ).
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Real Madrid
Lunin, Carvajal (Militao, min. 110), Rüdiger, Nacho, Mendy, Valverde, Camavinga, Kroos (Modric, min. 79), Bellingham, Rodrygo (Brahim, min. 84) and Vinicius (Lucas Vázquez, min. 102) .
Goals: 0-1: min. 12, Rodrigo. 1-1: min. 76, De Bruyne.
Penalties: 1-0, Julián Álvarez. 1-0, Modric, for Ederson. 1-0, Bernardo Silva, for Lunin. 1-1, Bellingham. 1-1, Kovacic, to Lunin. 1-2, Lucas Vázquez. 2-2, Foden. 2-3, Nacho. 3-3, Ederson. 3-4, Rüdiger.
Referee: Daniele Orsato (Italy). He booked Carvajal, Grealish, Gvardiol, Rodri and Mendy.
Incidents: Second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals, played at the Etihad Stadium in front of 52,400 spectators.
Ancelotti’s men went ahead with a blow from Rodrygo that unleashed hostilities in a clash, until then, with a marked tactical profile. But City tied in the second half through De Bruyne, the opener who broke the visiting team’s constant resistance and precipitated a tachycardia overtime followed by some heart-stopping penalties that gave the pass to a Real Madrid with infinite endurance against a City team. with more power, but without luck.
All of this as a result of a match that turned into a chess game in which Real Madrid was the first to check. A long delivery from Carvajal that Bellingham tamed with a silk boot triggered Rodrygo’s goal. The São Paulo player, who has a City side between his eyebrows against whom he has scored four goals in seven games, took advantage of a killer pass from Vinicius to beat Ederson on the second attempt and transfer the pressure to the hosts.
The light blues reacted by tightening the siege on Lunin’s goal and making Caín’s goal pass to a Real Madrid that used the resistance manual. The shooting count at the end of the litigation says it all about it: 34 locals versus 8 visitors. One of the clearest chances was Haaland, who crashed a header against the crossbar after Lunin showed a great hand to abort a pass by De Bruyne on the right flank. The Belgian, a permanent torment, would then cannonade from afar to run into another formidable stretch from the Slavic goalkeeper, immeasurable.
Ancelotti returned Bellingham to its original condition, bringing him closer to the engine room in order to level forces in the wide zone and take advantage of his deployment and vision of the game to beat the lines. Carletto’s mandate was to defend well, minimize losses and take advantage of transitions. His footballers picked up the glove and applied themselves with pick and shovel against City’s offensive mixer. Gealish, omnipresent, gave Carvajal a yellow card that will make him miss the first leg of the semi-final against Bayern and almost equalized with a shot that Rüdiger deflected ‘in extremis’ in the final stretch of a first half that ended with Madrid intact after an innumerable volley of gunfire.
Lunin sees Courtois
Crucial to surviving such a shootout was the performance of Lunin, who once again grew bigger on the way back from the locker room to prevent an extraordinary volley from Grealish from ending up in the net. It is not strange that City ignores his crazy nights because the one from Birmingham is a good-looking devil who plays like angels.
The Etihad pressed while the locals laid siege to the Real Madrid area by land, sea and air, entrenched and subjected to extreme suffering. City is a hammer that overwhelms both its quality and its persistence. Ancelotti’s men, unable to cross the divide, put up an emotional defensive exercise, knowing that any slightest mistake would condemn them despite Lunin’s display.
Guardiola made a move with the entry of a compulsive challenger like Doku to find the way around a great Carvajal. The Catalan’s idea was to widen the field, move Real Madrid patiently and wait for the fruit to fall ripe. It was achieved by De Bruyne, who collected a tame clearance from Rüdiger to shoot over Lunin.
Madrid, suffocated, tried to withstand the surge of City, which was about to gain the advantage with two whips from De Bruyne that came licking the crossbar. The visitors were short of breath, so Ancelotti enlisted Modric and Brahim in search of oxygen. But City, very powerful, continued doing its thing, with Rodri acting as superb head of operations and Doku showing off his fangs.
Vinicius, defeated despite the fact that Ancelotti preferred to retire Rodrygo first due to the ranking, ended up leaving room in extra time for Lucas Vázquez, a bet from Reggiolo motivated by the need to help Carvajal in holding Doku. All in all, Real Madrid had it after an error by Akanji that left Rüdiger in the goalmouth, but the Berliner, oblivious to the role of striker, wasted a perfect opportunity before retaliating from eleven meters and sealing his passport for a Real Madrid that ended up stiff, but that is immortal.
2024-04-17 22:06:58
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