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There was a scene in the first half of last year's Manchester City-Real Madrid match, the second leg of the Champions League semi-final, that summed up the magnitude of the wreck (4-0). Vinicius is standing on the sideline and Guardiola approaches him from behind and says: “Are you playing?” The Brazilian smiles, turns and shakes his hand: “Now we play.” The coach continues joking: “Are you sure?” The dominance of his team was proving suffocating, but Vinicius seemed confident that the downpour would pass: “A little… and that's it.” But it didn't happen.
Guardiola 🤝 Vinicius #DeportePlus #UCL pic.twitter.com/XlzNeyMByD
— Let's go for Movistar Plus+ (@vamos) May 18, 2023
On the contrary: Madrid had never been so subdued in the first half of the Champions League or the League in the last 18 seasons, which is the time covered by the records of Opta, the company with the longest history. Carlo Ancelotti's players were only able to make 44 passes in the City field, the lowest number in almost two decades, of which only 23 reached a teammate, a very poor 52% success rate. They went into the break 2-0 down. The graph of the average positions of the Madridistas, almost without crossing over to the other field, is devastating.
No team has suffocated Madrid like Guardiola's City did last season, which returns to the Bernabéu this Tuesday for the first leg of the quarterfinals (9:00 p.m., Movistar). The suffocation did not only happen at the Etihad: Madrid's second worst first half had happened the previous week in Madrid, in the first round of the tie against City: 47 passes in the opponent's half, 25 good, 53.2% of success. However, they managed to escape from that cage still with a pulse thanks to a great goal from Vinicius that put them ahead in the 35th minute and put them ahead at halftime, 1-0 (1-1 at the end).
In the return, the steamroller crushed them in such a way that when City arrived at the locker room after 4-0, Guardiola gave them gigantic praise: “You are the best team in the world. Congratulations,” he told them, as seen in the
Netflix documentary series
Treble Winners .
Last year's tie can be seen as a pivotal turning point for both teams. City were looking to climb a step in the construction of their own winning culture after the setback of the previous year, when Madrid came back behind them in an astonishing way in a few last seconds of Rodrygo's illumination. “As a club, it is a relief,” Guardiola said this Monday about later lifting his first Orejona there.
For its part, Madrid confirmed that part of its old guard had worn out and that it would maintain the course of the transition towards young people. Florentino Pérez did something unusual after a setback of that caliber: he kept the coach, who had mentored the growth of the promises, and renewed him a few months later, in December, with much of this season still ahead of him.
City arrived at the Etihad match on fire from the embers of the previous year's disappointment, as Guardiola recalled this Monday: “We had an immense emotional level. First, to reach the final; then, for the previous year, when we had it very close. Rodrygo did his thing, and the Bernabéu... That was very present in the preparation.” The recent pain kept them alert even at the 4-0 break. “They can do anything now. We have to continue,” Haaland is heard in the locker room in the documentary. “We cannot live 45 minutes just defending what we deserved,” says Guardiola. And they overwhelmed Madrid.
Ancelotti summarized this Monday what his team lacked: “We played without courage, without personality. "They are fundamental aspects in this type of matches." Although not only that: “Also football. Some situations in the game, due to lack of courage and personality, we did not handle in the best way. It wasn't just a mental problem. Also technical. They put a lot of pressure on us from above and we did not look for alternative solutions.”
That night, still in the stadium, Kroos described what he had seen on the grass: “The first 20-25 minutes we were too passive. It cannot be said that we did not want to, or that we have not been aggressive. But we have been poorly positioned. They have played with at least one more player between the lines than in the first leg, which has made life a little complicated for us there.”
This Monday Guardiola put the focus more on the merit of his team: “When Real Madrid loses, people think it is because they played a very bad game. But in that game we were better; "Not because Madrid was bad, but because we did many things very well."
The shipwreck was interpreted by both the coaching staff and the Madrid board as proof that that eleven was weak physically compared to the exuberance of City. The Kroos-Modric couple came out very well. The next important match in which Ancelotti started them together was in September, in the Metropolitano derby, from which he removed the Croatian at half-time. It was Madrid's only defeat in 90 minutes this season (3-1). They have not formed together again as starters in an important game. That weakness will be patched by Camavinga's push.
The collapse of the Etihad was also the last big night for Benzema, who arrived in reserve, with very few quality training sessions for most of the season. The Frenchman, whose place Bellingham now occupies, barely appeared on the field and was invisible afterwards. He was the captain, but he was not heard in public. Three veterans appeared in the mixed zone (Nacho, who had not even played, Kroos and Modric) and Vinicius, a sign of the changing of the guard that was coming, weeks before Benzema's departure to Arabia. This Tuesday City tests the state of the remains of that shipwreck it caused. Without Kyle Walker to monitor the Brazilian.
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