Manchester City 1 – 1 Real Madrid (De Bruyne; Rodrygo). advance on penalty shootouts. Here’s our quick reaction at the final whistle. Still to come: Player ratings, post-game podcast, post-game quotes, analytical break downs, and much more.
In a stadium that has been historically difficult to play in for Real Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti’s men, doubted and written-off by many given their track record a the Etihad, started off brilliantly.
In a defensive mid-block, they dared Ederson to pass the ball, and remained compact while rotating quickly defensively.
Amid the structured defense, they put together really good build-up sequences facing Manchester City’s press, and scored a well-worked goal in the 12th minute:
But that, unfortunately for Madridistas watching around the world, was the peak of their performance. From there, they regressed into a deep defensive block, and invited waves and waves, (and waves — really tsunamis) of City pressure — dodging multiple bullets which somehow saw the team concede only one goal, shown below:
But, as difficult as it was, the suffering was somehow worth it, as Real Madrid advance through penalties. We’ll analyze this in a ton more detail in the coming hours. Congratulations to all the Madridistas.
