And with that, I’m done. A fascinating game, and a fantastic victory for Manchester City, who having won in Spain and with Sergio Ramos suspended for the second leg are in control of this tie. Bye!
Pep Guardiola has a chat. He’s asked whether he pulled off a surprise tactical masterstroke:
Because we won. Important is the way we played. We tried to come here to win the game and we did it in this stadium. It’s just the first part and if one team can overcome this situation it’s this club. But of course it’s a good result. I’m so proud of course, but it’s just the first step. We have another game, so it’s not over. But enjoy it, of course, we spoke about that, enjoy the moment, good dinner, regeneration, on Sunday we have a final and keep going in the Premier League and prepare for the second game against Madrid.
I would say [when we were at our best] we conceded a goal, that we should not have conceded, and when they were better we scored a goal. That is competition, that is football. We have to improve, so we do not give them the goal we conceded. But it’s part of the game and maybe in the future we will grow.
Looking at the incident again I think the Sergio Ramos sending-off was rather harsh: there was hardly any contact, and Jesus was extremely keen on going to ground. This was, in short, one of those rare matches in which Ramos didn’t really deserve a red card. Still, he’s owed a few.
And here’s David Hytner’s match report:
Manchester City’s players have missed a clutch of penalties this season. At times they have seemed cursed from the spot. And so when Kevin De Bruyne stood over a late penalty to put his team in charge of this slow-burning Champions League tie, it is safe to say that the nerves of the travelling support were jangling.
De Bruyne was a snapshot of composure and when he sent Thibaut Courtois the wrong way, it was the prompt for City to feel their hopes surge. The club have won only four knockout ties in nine seasons in this competition. A fifth is now within their grasp and this result was nothing more than they deserved.
Much more here:
Here’s Kevin de Bruyne’s post-match reaction. In brief: job half done:
I think it’s a very good start for the first game. The first 15 minutes we struggled a bit, but you have to go through the storm, and then an even first half and I think we started the second half really well and the goal comes at a bad moment for us because I think we were dominating at the time. But I think our response was brilliant. It’s a really good start for us. I think in the four years we are here with Pep we had some surprises and even the players, they don’t really know until the game starts what we need to do. We had some lesser moments but in a quality game like this you’re going to struggle sometimes but I think we fought really well. We’re only halfway there. it’s going to be an important game at home. Now we have a final on Sunday so we have to recover as quickly as possible to be ready for the final.
Gabriel Jesus meanwhile says he used to play as a winger at Palmeiras, and that he doesn’t mind where he plays. “I have to help my teammates.”
Tonight’s other Champions League game ended 1-0 to Lyon against Juventus. According to Uefa’s stats Juve actually had 15 shots, and one was on target, but still.
Juventus against a Lyon side with 6 players out through injury, sitting 7th in Ligue 1:
— Juventus News - Juvefc.com (@juvefcdotcom) February 26, 2020
63% possession
13 shots
0 on target
Shameful.
Several fine performances for City tonight, but Jesus was excellent in his unconventional sometime-striker-cum-wing-back role.
It was not Sergio Ramos’s first red card. Here’s a retrospective:
Final score: Real Madrid 1-2 Manchester City
90+4 mins: It’s over! Manchester City lost Laporte to injury, went a goal down and then turned the game around.
90+2 mins: Chance for Real! It’s a deep cross from the right, and Ferland Mendy ghosts to the far post, beyond a snoozing Mahrez, and could easily have scored had his shot been less hopeless.
90+2 mins: Mahrez runs towards the area, shimmies a bit, but then ignores Jesus and De Bruyne and runs right into Varane.
90+1 mins: There will be about three minutes of stoppage time. Sterling cuts across the edge of the penalty area, works a fine shooting chance but then sends the ball straight at Courtois. That could very easily have been three.
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90 mins: This has been an excellent away performance, though City did teeter a bit after they conceded. “Re: 79th minute ‘Jesus lays both hands on Ramos’ - let’s hope it cures him of his general shithousery,” notes Adam Harper, optimistically.
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88 mins: Mahrez sends the free-kick towards goal, but it’s low and central and Courtois gathers.
86 mins: Casemiro plays a poor pass towards Varane, and Jesus pokes it away and sprints clear. Ramos chases after him and puts a hand on the City player’s shoulder, and Jesus throws himself to the ground just outside the penalty area. It’s a foul, but only just.
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RED CARD! Sergio Ramos is off!
86 mins: This is unravelling fast for Real Madrid!
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84 mins: Real Madrid take off Isco and Modric and bring on Lucas Vazquez and Luka Jovic.
GOAL! Real Madrid 1-2 Manchester City (De Bruyne penalty, 83 mins)
De Bruyne sends Courtois the wrong way and slides the ball into the corner!
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Manchester City have a penalty!
Carvajal slides in on Sterling, who goes down, and the referee points to the spot! The ball was heading off the pitch anyway, and that was a horrendous tackle.
80 mins: A chance for another! Mahrez crosses from the right, and Jesus heads over from six yards!
79 mins: Jesus did lay both hands on the back of Sergio Ramos before he leapt, but with little or no force. The goal passes a VAR check.
GOAL! Real Madrid 1-1 Manchester City (Jesus, 78 mins)
A precious equaliser! De Bruyne conjures a phenomenal cross, which dips just over Sergio Ramos and onto Jesus’s forehead!
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76 mins: Bale’s first touch is inside City’s penalty area, but the shot that follows is from an unpromising angle and anyway deflected. Ederson collects.
75 mins: Gareth Bale comes on, replacing a tiring Vinicius Junior.
73 mins: Raheem Sterling comes on for Bernardo Silva.
72 mins: Then Isco pulls back for Sergio Ramos, and Fernandinho blocks his shot as well!
71 mins: Carvajal gets into the area, cuts onto his left foot, and Benzema sprints forward in front of goal, anticipating a tap-in. But Fernandinho anticipates as well, and gets across to block!
70 mins: City, needing to freshen things up, are readying Sterling.
66 mins: Real attack and Valverde is released on the right, where he shows an impressive burst of pace. Benzema runs clear of his marker in the penalty area, but Ederson anticipates the driven cross and comes out fast to claim it.
64 mins: The scoreline massively flatters Real, who since the goal have dropped back into a defensive 4-5-1, apparently content with their slender lead.
GOAL! Real Madrid 1-0 Manchester City (Isco, 60 mins)
From nowhere, Real take the lead! Rodri, Otamendi and Walker all mess up to convert untroubled possession to conceding a goal in the space of a few seconds. Rodri is robbed by Modric but Walker should deal with the ball when it rolls free; he takes an unnecessary touch when he might have booted clear and Vinicius Junior dispossess and slides across to an unmarked Isco, who shoots low past Ederson!
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59 mins: An excellent start to the half from City, who now win another corner. It’s their fourth; Real haven’t had one yet.
57 mins: Another chance! Gundogan lifts a pass from inside his own half over the entire Real Madrid team and into the path of Mahrez, but he hurries his shot, takes it when off balance and Courtois saves again.
56 mins: Mahrez surprises the Real defence by cutting outside onto his right foot, buying himself space for a shot which Courtois saves pretty easily.
b Modric’s next involvement is to release Vinicius Junior with a lovely pass. The Brazilian sprints into the box but takes a poor touch, loses control, and falls over in a desperate and vain search of a penalty.
53 mins: Modric stretches for the ball but is beaten to it by Mahrez, catching his opponent’s ankle. He’s also shown a yellow card.
50 mins: Real pass the ball around City’s penalty area for a while without getting into it, and then Casemiro gives the ball away and City counter. De Bruyne carries it about 60 yards before finding Mahrez, who cuts onto his left foot and then curls a shot wide of the far post from just outside the area.
48 mins: Valverde pulls Gundogan’s shoulder, and gets a booking.
46 mins: Peeeeep! City start the second half by tonking the ball down the right wing and straight out of play.
The players are on their way back out. Both teams are unchanged, from the looks of things.
“If you’re trying to sell someone on Rodri, what’s the pitch?” wonders Ryan Bell. “He looks like he’s going to turn the ball over every time Madrid press him, has been skipped past with ease 3-4 times already, and doesn’t seem to have much appetite for vertical passes either...” I think he’s a decent disruptor, and he’s played more passes than any other City player in the Premier League (he’s No2 overall, behind Virgil van Dijk). He doesn’t do a lot of chance creation, but then he’s not supposed to. Overall, he ain’t perfect but I quite like him.
Half-time: Real Madrid 0-0 Manchester City
45+3 mins: Isco wins a free-kick in the right-back position with a ludicrous dive, and that’s the last significant action of the half.
45+2 mins: Goalline clearance! The corner is flapped by Courtois straight to Jesus, whose volleyed shot was going wide but then Sergio Ramos miskicks his clearance so badly it would have gone in had Casemiro not been in the way!
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there’ll be a couple of minutes. City have themselves a corner.
45 mins: Bernardo Silva seems to be having a go on the right. He teases Ferland Mendy for a while, and ends up with a throw-in.
41 mins: Valverde runs into Benzema and goes down clutching his face. The referee somehow sees a City foul in this, and Mahrez did rest a palm on his shoulder a moment earlier.
38 mins: No goals, but this is being played at a remorseless pace and is really quite fun. In tonight’s other Champions League game, Lyon have taken the lead against Juventus, Lucas Tousart with the opener.
35 mins: A wild few seconds in City’s left-back area after Ederson passes the ball out of goal. Mendy flies into a couple of challenges, and then Rodri takes out Benzema.
34 mins: Now Gundogan is receiving treatment, after a falling Modric landed on his ankle. It looks like he’ll pull through, though.
33 mins: Laporte has indeed gone off, but he is at least walking unaided as he heads towards the dressing room.
32 mins: Laporte is down and receiving treatment, and it looks like his evening is over. Fernandinho is being readied.
30 mins: Save! Real threaten the City goal for the first time, with a fine cross from Mendy on the left. Benzema heads down and back across goal and is wheeling away to celebrate when Ederson gets a hand to it and pushes it away, but only as far as Vinicius Junior, who has to stretch, slips and can’t get a foot to it.
29 mins: Benjamin Mendy wins the game’s first booking, for tripping Modric.
28 mins: Another chance for City! Mendy slides the ball in from the left, De Bruyne dummies and Mahrez passes back to the Belgian, whose shot is disappointingly wild.
25 mins: Ooof! Mahrez gets back well to steal the ball from Vinicius Junior but then refuses to clear it, and instead dribbles a bit and then takes a very risky fall in the area in search of a free-kick. He is very lucky the referee was feeling charitable.
23 mins: City, meanwhile, are playing with Mahrez on the right and Jesus on the left, with De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva playing as withdrawn deep-lying forward-types. It’s all quite interesting, tactically.
21 mins: Chance for City! De Bruyne passes to Jesus, running behind Carvajal into the left side of the penalty area. He cuts inside and blasts a shot at goal, but it’s too close to Courtoise.
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20 mins: Now Karim Benzema, who should be at centre-forward, gets the ball on the left and there’s nobody in the penalty area at all. Real are basically playing with a random number of strikers.
16 mins: Ramos intercepts, passes to Isco and keeps running. He then takes up the bonus centre-forward position and when the cross is headed clear it’s picked up by the other supposed centre-back, Raphael Varane, who had relocated to attacking midfield. His shot flies over the bar. Real’s defenders, in short, are in adventurous mood.
13 mins: Mendy and Vinicius Junior look like they’re going to be a real handful for Walker tonight. Incidentally, Yash Thind wins the competition by correctly spotting Riyad Mahrez. No, JJ, it wasn’t Bally McBallface.
11 mins: Isco has the ball just inside Real’s half, and Carvajal, Real’s right-back, runs forward and takes up a position as bonus centre-forward. Attacking full-backs are on thing, but that’s taking it a bit far. He goes unfound, and eventually has to retreat.
9 mins: Ferland Mendy gets down the left for Real, but Walker steals the ball off him. Then Benjamin Mendy goes down the left for City. There is an annoying surfeit of Mendies tonight.
7 mins: Real have had the better of the opening minutes, but without any great precision to their play and City’s defence has consequently been unthreatened.
4 mins: Ederson has the ball. He looks to pass to his left but Laporte is tying his shoelaces, so he stands about and waits for a while. Then he doesn’t pass to his left after all, instead bashing it all the way downfield to Courtois.
1 min: The first attack sees Benjamin Mendy’s poor cross poorly cleared to Bernardo Silva, but Carvajal gets across in time to block the shot.
1 min: Action! Real Madrid get the game under way!
The teams are out! We’re now just an anthem, some handshakes and a coin toss away from action.
Real Madrid’s players do some pre-match high-fiving. Luka Modric, in the foreground, appears to be high-fiving the club’s new invisible midfielder. This photo can also serve as a clue to the identity of the mystery player, who nobody has correctly guessed yet.
“Man City have only failed to score twice in their last 32 Champions League matches, and one of those was against Spurs when they missed a penalty,” notes Phil Grey. “So good chance of an away goal then, although I do wonder who’d take the penalty if they got one. Who’s left who hasn’t missed one? Ederson?”
Ederson is apparently the best penalty-taker at the club in training, but then I suppose he’s the only one who never has to face Ederson. Guardiola isn’t keen on having his goalkeeper stranded upfield should he ever fail, so he remains untried in matches.
Pep Guardiola has a brief chat with BT Sport. The headlines: Fernandinho is on the bench because he “is not in top, top, top condition”. Sterling, meanwhile, “could play from the beginning, but 90 minutes, I don’t know”.
Competition time! Well, I say competition, but that word generally implies a prize. Let me be clear: the winner of this competition will receive nothing in return. Now, having established the ground rules, name that player:
Here’s Uefa’s handy illustration of Manchester City’s starting lineup:
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“It’s the Battle of the Baldies as far as the coaches go tonight,” writes Justin Kavanagh. “Although it’s more like the War of the Wage Wads on the field, I suppose.”
I’ve been poking about the history books to investigate a bit of historic creative accounting from Manchester City, in the early years of the 20th century. Here’s some pre-match reading:
Here are the teams again in purely textual form. Raheem Sterling is back for Manchester City, but he makes it only as far as the bench:
Real Madrid: Courtois, Carvajal, Varane, Sergio Ramos, Mendy, Valverde, Casemiro, Modric, Vinicius Junior, Benzema, Isco. Subs: Areola, Eder Militao, Kroos, Bale, Marcelo, Lucas, Jovic.
Man City: Ederson, Walker, Otamendi, Laporte, Mendy, De Bruyne, Rodri, Gundogan, Mahrez, Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva. Subs: Bravo, Sterling, Aguero, Silva, Fernandinho, Joao Cancelo, Foden.
Referee: Daniele Orsato (Italy).
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The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and these were the names on them:
📋✅ ¡Nuestro XI inicial 🆚 @ManCityES! #RMUCL | #HalaMadrid pic.twitter.com/QmpmtW6G9O
— Real Madrid C.F.⚽ (@realmadrid) February 26, 2020
How we line-up at the Bernabeu!
— Manchester City (@ManCity) February 26, 2020
Ederson. Walker, Laporte, Otamendi, Mendy, Rodrigo, Gundogan, Mahrez, De Bruyne (C), Bernardo, Jesus
Subs | Bravo, Sterling, Aguero, Silva, Fernandinho, Cancelo, Foden
🔵 #ManCity #UCL pic.twitter.com/cIggIoikFw
The view from Real Madrid’s dressing room, where they somehow make every player look like they’re the same height:
👕☑️ ¡Todo listo en nuestro vestuario! Ya falta menos para el saque inicial en el Bernabéu... 🙌#RMUCL | #HalaMadrid pic.twitter.com/KHRPaPnuRf
— Real Madrid C.F.⚽ (@realmadrid) February 26, 2020
Hello world!
Real Madrid come into this game on the back of a 2-2 draw at home to Celta Vigo and a 1-0 defeat to Levante, leaving them two points behind Barcelona in La Liga ahead of this Sunday’s Clásico, a fixture looming over their future ominously like a shadowy ghost character over a popular fictional hound in Scooby-Doo. Plus, their trophy cabinet contains more European Cups/Champions Leagues than can be considered healthy, so perhaps their focus will be elsewhere.
Eden Hazard will certainly be elsewhere, having picked up an injury at the weekend. “I don’t know if his season is over, but I hope not,” Zinedine Zidane said yesterday. “He loves playing football and while I can’t tell you what is in his eyes, I can see he is not happy.” Raheem Sterling on the other hand will be present, having recovered from a hamstring injury. “His natural condition, his regeneration is amazing. He said to us he could have played against West Ham and Leicester but the doctor said be careful,” Pep Guardiola said. “But he wanted to play and that’s a good sign. He’s fit, he’s ready.”
City have won two of their last four games by two and one goals to nil, and lost the other two by two and one goals to nil, from which you can conclude pretty much nothing. Sergio Ramos thinks they might be supermotivated because of the prospect of a two-year European ban: “When you see that this could be your last Champions League in the next few years, maybe that gives you extra motivation,” he said. “The Champions League is a special competition because of what it generates, because of its magnitude worldwide, so it is the focus for all great soccer players. It is a great place for them to shine.” Guardiola however thinks that is phooey: “There is no special motivation. Even if it was the last one there would not have to be extra motivation. The desire to win has to be there, without that it is impossible, but more than that it’s another game, that’s all.”
In other news, Zidane thinks Guardiola is at the top of the management tree - “There are so many great coaches, but for me he is the best.” - while Guardiola thinks Zidane, who has never lost a Champions League knockout tie, has a special gift for this competition: “What he’s done in Europe will not be repeated. Winning the Champions League three times in a row proves how great this club [Real, obvs] is.”
Here’s Sid Lowe’s match preview. And welcome!
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