Manchester airport is a mousetrap that swallows you up in the endless funnel of its baggage control. An hour stuck in a serpentine queue before entering the transit zone where cafes and restaurants have been packed since six in the morning. But today the faces, which revealed few hours of sleep, were one of satisfaction among the Madrid fans. Rubén de la Red was sitting on a bench not far from one of the dozens of bachelorette parties who were wandering around waiting for the gate of their flight to Ibiza, Mallorca, Alicante…
Guardiola’s trips
The tabloids spoke on their covers of a “miracle” and described Ancelotti’s men as “Spartan.” His indomitable resistance in the face of Manchester City’s attacks garnered both praise and surprise. The resignation among the celestial fans was summed up in a phrase of Guardiola: “If you have to lose, this is a hell of a way to do it.” The Barça coach, who changed the time of the previous training session on two occasions and then delayed it until Ancelotti’s intervention began, also skipped the protocol after the crash by going to the press room first to offer his impressions on what happened against a hundred journalists. This time a dejected Pep did not wish the Spanish press a “safe flight back,” as he did a year ago. Meanwhile, in the visiting locker room, Rudiger, the hero who scored the decisive penalty, led the party along with Camavinga, Vinicius and Militao. Lunin smiled as she entered, picked up his phone and answered a couple of messages before taking a shower and leaving as if nothing had happened. “I ended up very tired, I had never played a 120-minute game with so much tension,” he warned seconds before remembering his compatriots, who continue to be bombed by Putin.
The party hid many secrets. The first, the fight between Carlo Ancelotti and his son Davide on the board. Carletto opted for a 4-3-3 start to hurt Guardiola’s men and save the day with a medium block, aware of what was coming. His son proposed closing the hallways with more people in the middle and working on a deep defense to disable the offensive tilts of the citizens. In the end, the outcome of the meeting dictated the sentence and both were partly right. Madrid scored quickly, as Carlo expected, and the plan was blown up against a forced City that soon bottled up the whites, as Davide suspected, in search of an equalizer. The problem dhe Real Madrid is that he was unraveling in attack with a Bellingham who lost his reserve at game time, a Rodrygo who is too easy to replace and a Vinicius who deflated after a notable first half. The whites, who lost their ability to threaten, were left in the hands of Brahim and carried out delirious attacks, such as the counterattack that ended with Mendy assisting Lucas so that he could finish with a header. The birds were shooting shotguns.
Joselu warmed up for an hour, which at least allowed him to release his nerves on the sideline, where Pintus had to ask the fourth referee for permission to place the warm-up cones. The Etihad has become small in all aspects. Despite the fears, everyone will be available for the classic against Barça, although there will be rotations in the white eleven. The game was approaching the end of its agony when Mendy put his hand on the back of his thigh and Carletto ordered Camavinga to cover the band. So Jude, who could not bear his soul, huddled next to Valverde, being cheered on by his teammates in every effort. The Englishman was amazed by the bellows of ‘Pajarito’ who came and went in attack and defense to the aid of his teammates.
The only time Real Madrid lost was in the draw prior to the penalty shootout, where Kyle Walker beat Nacho to choose the place for the kicks, in the stand furthest from the Madrid fans, and the order, with the locals launching first. To make matters worse, Ederson stopped Modric’s first penalty, at which point Rudiger crossed midfield to encourage Luka. The German seemed to know the outcome. When Lucas Vázquez scored his, he pointed to Nacho, who did the same with the Galician by marking his shot. By then Lunin had already stopped one of Bernardo and another of Kovacic. The Croatian, who coincided with Kepa at Chelsea, had finished the previous warm-up by crossing balls from one field to another while laughing with the Basque. and his own Arrizabalaga, before the shootout, reviewed with the Ukrainian the notes that Llopis had prepared for the penalties. There was doubt with three City players who usually shot centrally. That’s why Lunin decided to stay in the middle at Bernardo’s. He didn’t lose anything by not going somewhere… he was the first. And he was right. Kovacic took a hard hand down on the pitcher’s natural side. The work of scouting had borne fruit.
Carletto distanced himself from the rest on penalties
When Rudiger screwed his shot into the stump of Ederson’s post, the euphoria of Real Madrid fans erupted. All except one Lunin who didn’t even flinch. The whites reached the Champions League semi-finals for the 12th time in the last fourteen years. Ancelotti’s tenth, like Guardiola. Carletto, who watched the penalties far from the rest, went to hug Pep as soon as the shootout finished. Mutual and reciprocal respect and admiration. With Carlo, Madrid has always reached the semifinals and has only lost two of the 14 ties it has played in (Juventus, in the semifinals in 2015, and City last year in that same round). Furthermore, the Madrid cabals remember that Whenever Madrid eliminated the current champion, it ended up winning the Champions League (1998, 2000, 2002, 2014 and 2022). Wembley must next.
Ancelotti did not want to talk about numbers in the mixed zone. He only boasted about the attitude of his “Spartans”: “Everyone gave us up for lost.” Valverde acknowledged that “no one has ever submitted us like this before” and Nacho admitted that “it has been very hard to withstand City’s attacks throughout the game.” Nobody remembered the classic, nor Bayern, who they will face in twelve days. It wasn’t necessary to win at the Etihad to make history. It was worth surviving endless torture to seal the ticket on penalties. This outcome, however, breaks the waterline of the sky bluesowing doubts in the team as confirmed by Joshua, the taxi driver who took us to the airport: “We will not win anything with Haaland. Guardiola encourages the players to think about him to solve problems on the field and Erling is a striking hammer. “They speak different languages.” A group of Real Madrid fans joked during the walk back to the city, just fifteen minutes away, “Ancelotti is more cholista than Simeone.” And they were somewhat right. Real Madrid took out the thorn in the Etihad. And Guardiola smelled it…
2024-04-18 18:00:12
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