Manchester City
The defending champions’ defense fended off Erling Haaland’s threat as both sides turned an exciting first leg into a positive
Perhaps the most revealing moment in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at the Bernabéu came nine minutes into the second half, when Erling Haaland finally found an open space on the side of Real Madrid centre-backs and made his way on goal with that loose dash strides forward, the rangefinders begin to beep and flash, his finger rests on the shut-off button, his eyes narrow behind his aviator goggles, the target is in his sights.
At this point, David Alaba managed an exceptional rebound tackle. Alaba pushed back into sliding range and threw himself around Haaland’s raised shooting foot in a gymnastic half-pirouette. Still sliding, still dealing with the math and resistance vectors, Alaba successfully hooked his own left foot in front of the ball’s predicted trajectory and blocked the shot as it bounced off Haaland’s toe towards the back corner of the goal.
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Alaba stood and jabbed in the chest with Dani Carvajal. There were urgent low fives as Madrid prepared to defend the corner. That was good, really very good. But Alaba has a track record of pulling off such last-ditch miracle attacks.
Haaland’s reaction was probably the most telling. He actually looked quite surprised. That doesn’t happen to him often. Haaland is too fast, too determined in his movements. But that was pretty much his evening, 90 minutes of his calmest time since the inauguration of the Cruyffian “box” (lay version: five big boys in the back) that started City’s current steamroller series.
Haaland’s lifting was a triumph for Carlo Ancelotti’s defenders, especially Antonio Rudiger, who can look frantic, exhausted and, frankly, looks like he’s playing in rubber boots, but when it comes to the details, he is a first-rate warrior in one-on-one duels who grabbed and smashed his man to prevent him from turning around, so much so that in the end the most noticeable Haaland at the Bernabéu was probably Alfie, who was filming an altercation in the stands was finally escorted to safety by a strong-looking man in a local uniform. Like father, like son.
The point is that this is allowed to happen. Other footballers are good too. And with all due respect to the defenders at Fulham, West Ham and RB Leipzig and indeed the Premier League where scores of 4-3, 6-0 and 5-3 are common. There are reasons Tim Ream and Angelo Ogbonna aren’t faces one encounters on bravura global weeknight TV appearances, while a voice screams “nous sommes les meilleures” and Manchester City fans imperial V-signs from a pen in the gods distribute.
Midweek Madrid has been the elite standard in club football for the last decade. That’s supposed to be tough. No one was plugged in here or exposed as a scammer. Instead, the lesson of Alaba’s craft, from the overall tone of an occasionally cold, always captivating draw, is that Real Madrid’s success really isn’t based on magic or witchcraft or some sort of anti-pep spirit energy; it’s elite players doing elite stuff.
All this is of course nothing new. But it’s a useful point of view in the task of analyzing and anatomizing the 1-1 draw that’s already well underway. This is, of course, entirely result-oriented. The occasional win in Manchester and City’s reluctance in Madrid becomes an act of genius in game management. Lost by a goal or two, this bald imposter has once again blinked in the eye of the storm, spiked his own guns and all.
Pep Guardiola resisted the temptation to try anything too clever in Madrid and was rewarded with a mature performance and what appeared to be a good result. Photo: Alex Livesey/Danehouse/Getty Images
In this case at least, the criticism will focus on not giving sufficient consideration to the occasion. Where were the crazy tweaks, the counter-intuitive choices? What advantage does Pep have by picking the same team that has won 15 games out of 16 and scored 52 goals?
The reality is of course very simple. City have been cautious because Guardiola believes it’s the best route to victory and because he made the logical decision to learn from last year when City’s attack was denied by Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus (total goals: many) failed to protect the counter-attack as Jack Grealish and Bernardo Silva (total European goals this season: one) have done in recent weeks.
Pep explained afterwards that he “choose players who keep the ball” because “if the game went crazy, we wouldn’t be as good at it as they are”. Nobody bottled anything here. Instead, Guardiola did something that was fully in line with his vision of the game; A vision will, of course, occasionally come across as a bit cold. The fact is that a 1-1 draw in Madrid is the best result City have had in the three semi-finals between these two sides so far.
This makes City a tight but vulnerable favorite to progress. At this point it is worth clarifying the scope of this task. Because Madrid are, let’s not forget, exceptionally good. Vinícius Júnior was the best attacking player on the pitch, confirming his status as one of the truly creative elite players in world football, a 22-year-old who never fails to bring clarity and precision to even the most dizzying of occasions. It’s certainly time for Brazil to break away from Neymar a bit and build a squad around this more ordered attacking phenomenon.
Despite all the consistent parts, Madrid’s squad is also quietly being inundated with youngsters. Eduardo Camavinga, who scored the goal for Vinícius, is 20. Add Jude Bellingham to that mix, which could well be happening given the current talk, throw in Aurélien Tchouaméni and who knows, maybe even Haaland in a few years (Madrid seems to believe that). will happen), and it’s not hard to see another dynasty emerging here.
In the end, both teams will be satisfied with the 1-1 draw, which simply illustrates the task at hand. But to call it a missed opportunity or even a bottle problem or a stranglehold misses the scale and beauty of the event.
This City team is as close to an absolute winning machine as any in modern English football. That’s what Madrid struck at the Bernabéu and disarmed for now, not with magic or a wink from their opponents, but with that multi-layered slow-burn draw that still ensures razor-sharp parity at the Etihad every time of the week.
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