FULL TIME: Real Madrid 4-1 Manchester City
And that’s that. Real Madrid are the International Champions Cup champions, for what that’s worth. They swarmed all over Manchester City today. But then City have the slightly nicer away kit. So it’s swings and roundabouts.
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90 min: There will be three added minutes. Only 180 seconds left of the International Champions Cup. And then we’ll have to wait another long year.
89 min: Clichy, 30 yards out down the left, looks to float a curler into the top right. It’s not a bad effort, albeit one that’s easily claimed by Navas.
88 min: “Is it any surprise that the second most fearsome attack in world football had a rather good day against a central defence consisting of a 16-year-old kid and a chap who was alright for Celtic last year?” asks Greg Parlett.
85 min: More of the Real keepball.
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83 min: A real This Is Over feel about the game. Both teams willing the clock to tick down quickly, for different reasons.
82 min: Patrick Roberts makes his City debut, coming on for Navas.
79 min: Real are playing keep-ball right now. City can’t get a sniff.
76 min: Isco has been superb today. He’s run the show. He gets a well-earned rest, replaced by Llorente.
75 min: A crowd of 99,382 here today. A few hundred short of capacity.
GOAL! Real Madrid 4-1 Manchester City (Cherysev 74)
A few throw-ins down by City’s right-hand corner flag. It’s all sleepy stuff, but Real suddenly wake up while City stay snoozing. Isco skitters into space to the right of the box, and fires a low ball into the middle. Hart is out of position, and Cherysev is on hand to walk the ball into the net.
71 min: Navas makes good down the right. A corner, which is easily cleared.
69 min: There’s no shape to this game now. A lot of loose passes, as you’d expect from two ever-changing teams.
66 min: A plethora of changes. City have introduced Dzeko, Clichy and Zuculini. Real have withdrawn Ronaldo and Ramos. Other players have arrived and departed, but those are the top lines. This is like a rugby international, or a football match in which both teams are managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson.
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64 min: A free kick for Real, 30 yards out, Fernando taking down Ronaldo in full flight. Ronaldo hoicks it 30 yards over the bar.
61 min: Actually, the ball’s hoicked out of play by a City boot, so that’s a corner. From which Isco is found in space down the right. He whips a cross in. Varane meets it with a Keith Houchen style diving header, but his effort flies over the bar.
60 min: Sterling jinks down the right, reaches the byline after tearing past Ramos, and pulls back for Navas. The ball doesn’t reach his team-mate, but what a stunning run. Then Real romp up the other end, Ronaldo slipped clear down the inside-left channel by Kroos. Ronaldo draws Hart again and performs an elaborate stepover and quick-flick, but his dink sails just wide right.
57 min: Real have the ball in the net, and it should count. Isco slips a ball into the area down the right for Ronaldo, splitting the City defence. He’s clear in the box, and having drawn Hart, slides the ball back to the left for Isco to tap into the empty net. The flag’s up for offside, but Ronaldo was level when he burst through.
56 min: Corner for Real down the left, Danayer having denied Bale at full pelt. Kroos takes. Hart claims. But Real are quickly coming back at City, Ronaldo cutting in from the right and blootering high over the bar.
53 min: Toure nearly bursts through a big gap down the Real right. Marcelo steps in to put a stop to his gallop, but once again City had a sniff there. This second-half version of Real Madrid aren’t quite up to speed yet. “I can’t help but notice your disdain for both panto and the booing of Sterling,” writes Neil McMahon. “Sterling is a classic panto villan, he’s a future Ashley Cole in the making, swerving his car as Man City only offer him 250k a week to convince him not to move to Madrid. It’s probably also worth noting that Australia is basically a Liverpool FC outpost and the MCG in particular has been host to Liverpool a number of times to very rowdy capacity crowds. So the booing was always going to be a given.” Fair enough. Speaking of swerving things, it’s interesting how Liverpool have managed to avoid criticism from their fans for failing to offer one of their best players a realistic deal until it was way too late. Losing one of the most promising players in Europe at the age of 20 smacks of a massive balls-up, but you can spin it either way I guess.
50 min: Well this would have been interesting. Nasri scoops a delightful ball down the inside-right channel, releasing Silva into the area. Silva can’t quite set himself to shoot, jinking around in a futile manner instead. But City were very close to opening Real up there. Another goal for City, and we’d suddenly have a game on our hands.
48 min: Free kick for Real down the left. Kroos hoicks it into the area. City clear. It’s all a bit muted right now. The first half started slowly as well, remember, so plenty of time for things to get going again.
We’re off again! Manchester City are unchanged for the second half. Four changes for Real, though: Jese, Casemiro, Danilo and Varane on; Benzema, Modric, Carvajal and Pepe off.
Half-time refreshment:
HALF TIME: Real Madrid 3-1 Manchester City
Well, if it is, most of it will have to wait until the second half. Toure’s penalty was the last significant act of the opening 45.
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GOAL! Real Madrid 3-1 Manchester City (Toure pen 45+4)
Toure slips the ball into the bottom-right corner! Is this the start of a great comeback?
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45 min +2: PENALTY TO CITY! Sterling earns it, chasing a ball down the inside-right channel. He flicks it back over his shoulder. Ramos handles. It’s outside the area, but in fairness City are owed a penalty for the Navas-Toure incident earlier. And so ...
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45 min: Ronaldo performs a series of stepovers down the left. Sagna eventually tackles him. City can be thankful that Ronaldo chose to showboat there, because he had men in the middle.
GOAL! Real Madrid 3-0 Manchester City (Pepe 44)
Carvajal wins a corner for Real down the right, his cross pinging off Kolarov. Isco lumps it into the area. Pepe wants it the most, and rises, in a central position, ten yards out, to power a header past a static Hart.
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42 min: Kolarov looks to break down the left. He’s upended by Carvajal near the corner flag. Free kick, and a chance to load the box. Real half clear. Sterling jiggles down the inside-right channel, unsettling the Real defence. He lays off to Nasri, who skelps a first-time shot straight down Navas’s throat from the edge of the area.
40 min: Sterling hasn’t touched the ball in a while, so the crowd entertain themselves with a Mexican wave.
38 min: Isco probes down the right and wins a corner. Danayer heads clear, but only to Carvajal, who takes the ball down and bursts back down the right channel, into the box. But as he shapes to stand one up for Ronaldo in the middle, he’s penalised for using his hand. City are looking shaky, though.
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37 min: Toure shapes to shoot on the edge of the Real box. He should belt it, but decides to drop a shoulder and embark on a dribble instead. He slips past Modric, Pepe and Marcelo, but loses control as Navas comes out to claim. City’s most dangerous moment.
35 min: Navas turns on the jets to reach the byline to the right of the Real goal. It’s a brilliant run, and he delivers a gorgeous pullback, but there’s nobody on the end of it.
32 min: Sterling falls over. The MCG crowd react. It’s panto season. There appear to be a lot of Liverpool supporters in Melbourne.
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31 min: Isco, down the right, whips a cross into the box. Bale, rushing in from the right-hand side of the D, tries to guide a powerful header into the top right. Not quite. But close.
29 min: The lovely twinkling toes of Sterling. He dribbles at pace down the inside-left channel, confusing Pepe immensely. Pepe’s frozen in the headlights. Sterling flicks inside for Toure, just inside the box. Toure falls over. Sterling nearly ripped Real open there.
28 min: Real look a threat every time they go forward. Bale goes on a big-leggy run down the middle, and is this close from setting Benzema free down the right. Humphreys intercepts at the last moment.
27 min: City are all over the shop here. Isco breaks clear down the inside-right channel. He’s got Benzema and Ronaldo to his left, with only Sagna chasing back. Isco hesitates, thinking about whether to shoot or pass, and Sagna can slide in to block when he eventually opts to take a shot. It should be three.
GOAL! Real Madrid 2-0 Manchester City (Ronaldo 25)
Charles Reep would enjoy this one. Kroos hoicks a high pass down the middle. Ronaldo scoots clear of Kolarov. Hart comes off his line. Ronaldo brings the ball down and looks to lob Hart. He doesn’t quite manage it, but the keeper finishes the job for him, failing to get a strong hand on the lob, and flapping it backwards into the net. Hart chases back in a futile attempt to scoop it off the line, but it’s over and in.
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23 min: Sterling, in reply, tries to make something happen for City down the left. He can’t quite shuttle the ball on to Nasri. He’s still getting pelters from the crowd.
GOAL! Real Madrid 1-0 Manchester City (Benzema 21)
This is a beaut! Carvajal goes on a romp down the right, then slips the ball outside to Bale, who loops a cross towards the penalty spot. Benzema, running backwards a little to meet the dropping ball, shapes and skelps a Zidane-esque volley into the left-hand side of the net! Hart had no chance whatsoever. That was a screamer!
19 min: And now Delph is down on the floor, feeling the back of his leg. Hamstring, maybe, writes renowned quack Dr Murray, who couldn’t possibly know, being 10,000 miles away. He appears to have jiggered himself. Modric may be considering the concept of karma. Delph is replaced by Navas.
17 min: Delph makes a challenge here all right, though. He clatters into the side of Modric, taking him out at the knees. Modric, more stunned than annoyed, looks up at Delph with puppy eyes, as though to say: c’mon man, this is a friendly, a glorified training session. Delph should be booked for that, but the referee opts for a ticking off.
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16 min: Silva sees more of the ball down the right. He diddles around for a while, then cuts back and curls a high one into the Real box. Navas is out quickly to claim. Delph, perhaps mindful of what recently happened to Toure, doesn’t bother to challenge for the ball.
14 min: Silva sashays in from the right and balloons a shot miles over the bar from 25 yards. After a slow start, City are looking lively.
12 min: But as it’s not, who cares. Nobody in a City shirt bothers to argue.
10 min: And now City move it up a gear. Sterling turns on the jets down the left, then goes over in the box under a light touch from Pepe. He claims a penalty, but the referee isn’t having it. You’ve seen them given. Then there’s a long ball bouncing into the Real box. Ramos tries to toe-poke it back to Navas, but the keeper’s come way off his line and the ball loops over his head. Toure looks to take advantage, and for a second he appears to be in position to pounce on Ramos’s intervention and poke home into an unguarded net. But he’s clattered by the keeper. The referee decides that’s an accidental collision, so no penalty there either. If this was a Champions League game, you’d hear some noise about that.
8 min: Real Madrid are beginning to bare their teeth. Benzema nearly breaks clear down the middle. Bale has a look down the left wing. Benezma nearly latches onto a loose Delph pass in the centre circle. City mop up on each occasion.
6 min: Sergio Ramos rolls around the floor wearing a pained expression, like he’s been asked about a move to Manchester United for the 394th time this summer. He’s been winded, having ran smack-bang into Kolarov. He eventually gets up. All the action, as it happens.
5 min: Bale, Marcelo and Benzema flick it up and down the left wing in a style that’s easy on the eye. Marcelo threatens to break into the box, chasing a clever scooped Bale pass, but he falls over.
3 min: Now Real take a turn to stroke it around the back a bit. Perhaps it’s going to take a while for this warm-up to warm up.
2 min: A first touch for Sterling, and the first loud pantomime booing. This is getting old already.
And we’re off! City get the ball rolling. They knock it around the back a bit. Silva tries to scoot up the right, but Real close down the space. A lot of hectic passing and pressing going on.
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The teams are out! Manchester City are in their rather fetching dark-blue change strip. It’s not as nice as the classic Neil Young 1969 red-and-black number, but as away kits go it’s pretty enough. Real Madrid are decked out in their swap duds too. A grey number which suggests a pair of socks got into the wash load. No doubt it looks nice with jeans. The weather, incidentally, is positively Mancunian. It’s tipping down. Cleansing. It’s winter in Australia, after all. We’ll be off in a sec.
One of these teams will lift Glorified Tin Pot today. For the record, Manchester City will be champions - champions! - if they win or draw this game. They’ll be champions if the match goes to penalties, as a result of some rule or other. Real Madrid need to win. Roma can’t be champions. Champions, though. Champions.
The big news for City: A start for 16-year-old Cameron Humphreys in the centre of defence, and a debut for Fabian Delph. Although of course there’ll be a proper debut still to come for Delph in good time, in a competitive fixture, which this isn’t. Mind you, Real Madrid are certainly taking this one seriously if that line-up is anything to go by. Which it might not be, given that La Liga doesn’t start for another month.
The teams
Real Madrid: Keylor Navas, Carvajal, Pepe, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo, Modric, Kroos, Isco, Bale, Ronaldo, Benzema.
Subs: To come; keep hitting refresh like billy-o
Manchester City: Hart, Sagna, Denayer, Humphreys, Kolarov, Toure, Fernando, Delph, Nasri, Silva, Sterling.
Subs: Caballero, Wright, Horsfield, Clichy, Evans, Zuculini, Garcia, Lopes, Navas, Pozo, Unal, Roberts, Iheanacho, Barker, Jovetic, Dzeko, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Say what you like about Raheem Sterling, and plenty do, but the lad’s got star quality. He’s only 20 years old, and yet he’s already nearly helped Liverpool to a league title, shone as England’s best player at a World Cup finals, and become the most expensive English player of all time. That’s not bad going. And while this game could feature the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos, Gareth Bale and Luca Modric ... he’s the one everyone will be running the rule over, isn’t he. Star quality, see. Let’s have a look, then!
Venue: MCG, Melbourne, Australia.
Competition: International Champions Cup.
Status of International Champions Cup: Glorified training session.
Kick off: 8pm local time, 11am BST.
