Xabi Alonso doesn’t have an easy life at Real Madrid. The coach has been “pissing himself”, as Pep Guardiola advised him, but the results continue to elude him. This Wednesday, the “meringues” suffered their second consecutive defeat, when they lost 1-2 at the Bernabéu to Manchester City in the sixth round of the Champions League. The Spaniards, who will be Benfica’s opponents in the last round of the league phase, fell to eighth place, with 12 points, and are on the edge of direct qualification for the “eighth”. City, with 13 points, moved up to fourth.
It wasn’t a game of life or death for Real, but it was a game of affirmation for Alonso, who, a few days ago, lost to Celta 0-2, having only won twice in the last eight games. Even though they were limited in their options (Mbappé was on the bench, but didn’t leave), Real seemed to be a Real from Ancelotti’s time, more of a counterattack than a planned attack. And in several of those moments it created danger. Just at 2′, Vinicius fell in the area, in a play with Matheus Pereira and the referee awarded a penalty – a VAR review placed the foul outside the area.
Shortly afterwards, in the 7th minute, in a move from right to left, Rodrygo placed the ball at Vinicius’ feet, but the Brazilian international, faced with Donnarumma’s departure, shot over the ball. The goal “merengue” was guessed and it happened in the 28th minute, in a play that began with Carreras stealing the ball from Bernardo Silva. The Spaniard soon passed it to Gonzalo, who, in turn, passed the “potato” to Bellingham. The Briton turned it to Rodrygo and the Brazilian, already inside the area, made it 1-0.
The celebration at the Bernabéu was short-lived. In the 35th minute, in a set piece from City into the area, Gvardiol headed an incomplete save by Courtois and, on the rebound, O’Reilly equalized. Just before the break, in the 43rd minute, Rüdiger took a penalty on Haaland and the Norwegian, in one of the few times he touched the ball during the game, scored the equalizer to convert the penalty. It should be said that, in the second half, Real laid siege to Guardiola’s team’s goal, but nothing worked.
Perfect Arsenal
Those who continue on their triumphant journey are Arsenal who, after suffering a rare defeat at the weekend against Aston Villa, returned to comfortable victories, triumphing 0-3 in Belgium over Club Brugge. Madueke was the man of the match, scoring two of the team’s three goals.gunners”, at 25′ and at 47′, with Martinelli scoring the third. The London team is the only team with only victories in this league phase and with a full number of points (18).
The pacesetter on this journey was PSG, who were unexpectedly anemic on their visit to San Mamés, managing nothing better than a goalless draw with Athletic Bilbao – these are Sporting’s last two opponents in the competition.
The ones who finally managed to do something in this Champions League were Ajax, who won their first game at the sixth attempt, a 2-4 victory against Qarabag. The Dutch got three points that might not be of much use to them, but at least they were enough to leave last place. Now, there are already two teams behind, one of them Villarreal, who only has one point, after having suffered another defeat, at home against FC Copenhagen by 2-3, with a last-minute goal from Andreas Cornelius.
