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65 min: Tchouaméni is fine to continue.
64 min: Tchouaméni is down, having been caught by Rodri’s high-kick. Nothing sinister in it, but that’ll be a sore one. On comes the physio with his magic sponge.
62 min: There are huge gaps in the City midfield. Brahim Diaz powers through one. Vinicius Junior jinks through another and shoots. Donnarumma saves. Finally Guler peals a low diagonal inches wide of the right-hand post. The penalty miss seems to have reinvigorated Real into further action.
60 min: … and it nearly is a properly pivotal moment, Doku jinking in from the left, his low cross nearly steered into his own net by Rudiger. Nothing comes of the resulting corner. But still. A potential four-goal deficit could have been reduced to two in the blink of an eye. Once again, the small margins.
Vinicius misses the penalty!
58 min: … and Vinicius Junior misses it! A casual meander of a run-up. He rolls towards the bottom right. Donnarumma guesses correctly and blocks. City clear their lines. A potential pivotal moment? Vinicius Junior raises his hand to the crowd by way of apology, the other hand on the club crest. That was a wee bit too relaxed.
57 min: Just a booking for Donnarumma, who was making an effort to play the ball and not the man. On to the penalty, then.
Penalty for Real Madrid
56 min: Silva takes, but Huijsen heads clear easily enough. Alexnader-Arnold, from his right-back berth, creams one long pass down the middle. Vinicius Junior is clear! He’s got the better of Khusanov, and reaches the box ahead of the defender. He then tries to dribble around Donnarumma, who tries to grab the ball but catches his man instead. The referee points to the spot.
55 min: … so having said that, Silva slips a cute pass down the inside-right channel for Semenyo, who whips a first-time shot towards the near post. Courtois turns around for a corner.
54 min: City are enjoying more possession and territory now. But there are no gaps appearing in the final third.
52 min: Reijnders has looked lively since coming on, and Silva continues to buzz around in his relentless way. But otherwise City are looking, perhaps understandably, ragged. “That ship on the City crest is looking more and more like the Titanic tonight,” observes Justin Kavanagh. “But even the doomed liner stayed afloat til April.”
50 min: Real smell blood, though. Pitarch steams after a ball down the right but can’t get the better of Guehi. He’d have been through on goal had he won the duel. Meanwhile here’s Ian Copestake with some succour for City: “If European footer history has taught us anything, it’s that not all 3-0 half-time leads are secure.” It’s probably not the best week to be referencing past Liverpool glories, is it. Or maybe it’s exactly the time to do it. Oh I don’t know.
48 min: … then City go up the other end, win a corner down the left, hit it long … and O’Reilly somehow sends the ball wide right off his thigh from a couple of yards! Not a banner evening for the young man so far, though the flag goes up for a not particularly obvious foul, so blushes are saved.
47 min: Braham Diaz dribbles hard down the right and enters the City box. He chops past the flailing Guehi and shoots. Donnarumma parries with a strong arm. Vini Jr tries to knock in the rebound, but Dias sticks out a leg to block brilliantly. So close to number four.
Real Madrid get the second half underway. They’ve replaced Mendy with Fran Garcia, while City have sent on Reijnders for Savinho, a move that strongly suggests damage-limitation.
Half-time postbag. “Up there with the best half of football I’ve seen from an individual player in my lifetime. The first was super, the second excellent, the third exquisite” – Matthew Stratford
“I think we might have just witnessed - albeit for one half - one of the all-time great individual displays. I remember plenty of strikers but from a wing back, especially the way he joined forces on the left side for his second goal, Valverde has conveyed supreme game know-how and tremendous passion and commitment” – K Sangha
“Has Pep Guardiola underestimated Madrid tonight? 4-2-4 with Bernardo Silva as one of the two now looks … ambitious” – Joshua Keeling
“Premier League clubs whomped the group stage, or whatever they’re called now, but have been thoroughly unimpressive in knock-outs so far. Is English football in irrevocable decline?” – Hugh Collins
“Does this put Spurs’ travails last night into some sort of context? City even have the advantage of wearing the right shoes” – Tom Hopkins
HALF TIME: Real Madrid 3-0 Manchester City
Federico Valverde, take a bow. One of the great Champions League hat-tricks. The first two goals weren’t half bad; the hat-trick goal was out of this world. A captain’s performance all right. Pep needs to pull something quite big out of the bag during the break.
45 min: There will be one additional first-half minute. My goodness, how Manchester City need to hear that half-time whistle.
44 min: What a sensational goal. Vinicius Jr started it all with a power dribble down the left, but the move looked to have petered out when he couldn’t decide whether to pass or shoot. But his team-mates salvaged the situation with some outrageous link-up play and ball-juggling on the other flank! A 22-minute hat-trick!
GOAL! Real Madrid 3-0 Manchester City (Valverde 42)
Valverde completes the first hat-trick of his career! Brahim Diaz wedges a delicate pass into the City box down the inside-right channel. Valverde meets the dropping ball, cushioning a soft volley over Guehi’s head, then slotting it into the bottom left! That’s outrageously good!
40 min: The corner comes in. Guehi skittles Mendy and the whistle goes for a foul. Alexander-Arnold was also grappling with Semenyo, mind, so City are within their rights to wonder what’s going on. It’s strangely comforting to realise that referees on the continent are making it all up as they go along as well.
39 min: Rodri shovels a pass down the inside-left channel for Silva, forcing Valverde into the concession of a corner. Silva sends the ball all the way through a crowded box. Nobody touches it. But Doku retrieves the ball on the right touchline and wins another corner. Silva to take.
37 min: Another City free kick, another chance for Silva to loop it into the box. This time from the left. This time headed clear by Guler.
36 min: … but he plays it short to Semenyo instead. Semenyo makes it to the byline, but his cross is flicked clear by Mendy. “Does the City crest chip have a ‘Restart game’ feature?” Andy Gordon, ladies and gentlemen! He’s here all week. Try the Pac-Man power pellets.
35 min: Savinho hasn’t had much of a sniff, but he draws a foul here from Tchouaméni with a sharp turn down the right. A chance for Silva to swing a free kick onto Haaland’s head.
33 min: On the touchline, Pep Guardiola tries very hard to maintain his supercool. The eyes give him away. A concerned look as he stares into the middle distance. “I think it’s safe to say that Pep’s experiment to convert Nico O’Reilly into a full-back has gone extremely well,” begins Kári Tulinius, and you know a but is coming, “but I feel like someone more used to playing with the pitch in front of him wouldn’t have misjudged the flight of the ball like that.”
31 min: The Bernabeu had fallen a little quiet during City’s early dominance. It’s not quiet now. City aren’t dominating now, either. They can hardly get a touch.
29 min: Real’s captain has done a proper number on City here, down both flanks. The Real players swapping and shifting positions in attack, just as they did against Benfica last month.
GOAL! Real Madrid 2-0 Manchester City (Valverde 27)
What a double whammy this is! Vinicius Jr nips in from the left. His pass infield deflects off Dias and into the road of Valverde, who strides into the box down the inside left and lashes a low drive across Donnarumma and into the bottom right! That’s a brilliant goal, and City, who started so well, have been stunned by Valverde’s quickfire double!
26 min: Before that goal, a Manchester City opener looked no more than a matter of time. But suddenly the Real Madrid tails are up, and they’re first to everything. What a momentum shift. Real Madrid in the Champions League, ladies and gentlemen.
24 min: … and then Donnarumma, rushing towards Valverde’s feet on the very edge of his box, was caught between tackling outside it and handling inside it, so did neither. On TNT, Joe Hart suggests Donnarumma made a super-fast calculation that risking a penalty and/or red card wasn’t worth it, so kind of pulled out of the challenge, and let Valverde circumvent him. He’s an extremely good pundit, Joe Hart, isn’t he?
22 min: That was as direct as it comes. Long pass from the keeper. One touch to get away from the defender. Another to round the keeper. A final one to score. Brilliant from Courtois, but O’Reilly got caught under that horribly. A big mistake by a fine young player.
GOAL! Real Madrid 1-0 Manchester City (Valverde 20)
City were well on top. And now they’re behind. It didn’t take much. A long Courtois pass down the inside-right channel is misjudged by O’Reilly and met by Valverde, who traps and skates away from the defender. Donnarumma comes to the edge of his box but Valverde knocks the ball around the keeper on the right, before rolling into the empty net from a tight angle. So simple!
19 min: Silva sends a snapshot from the edge of the Real D inches wide of the bottom left. Courtois almost certainly had it covered, but a fine effort nonetheless. City well on top.
18 min: Haaland traps and spins in the centre circle, then sprays a long diagonal towards Doku on the left touchline. The pass is too strong, and into the stand it flies. Shame, because the rest of that was rather elegant. And Doku would have been away.
16 min: Silva hits the corner in from the left hard and flat. Semenyo goes to meet the ball on the penalty spot – it’s a clever training-ground routine, everyone else having been pulled away from the centre – but slips just before contact. A farcical outcome, but a smart idea. An awful lot of slipping going on in Madrid this week.
15 min: City continue to pass the ball around a lot. Real push them back towards their own box but the visitors simply start building their rhythm again. And suddenly Doku tears past Alexander-Arnold on the left, twisting and turning the right-back, and winning a corner. From which …
13 min: Doku yet again causes havoc down the left, turning on the jets before slipping O’Reilly into the box on the overlap. O’Reilly hits a shot-cum-cross that Courtois fingertips away from goal. That might have been creeping into the top-right corner otherwise.
11 min: Manchester City will be happy with the way this match has started. They’ve had most of the ball, and Doku looks electric every time he gets it. In a parallel universe somewhere, those two crosses were tapped home, and City are flying. The small margins.
9 min: … nothing happens, which is just as well, because Brahim Diaz was offside when receiving the pass that led to the shot that led to the corner. VAR couldn’t intervene, obviously.
8 min: Doku causes all manner of trouble down the left again. Another low cross, this one pulled behind Haaland and Semenyo in the middle. So close again! Then the hosts counter, Vinicius Jr slipping Brahim Diaz into the box down the left. Brahim Diaz shoots towards the near post. Donnarumma parries, and Guehi turns behind for a corner. From which …
7 min: … and now Doku threads a low cross from the left through the Real six-yard box. Haaland isn’t there to poke home. Very strange.
6 min: The careless passes are piling up. Alexander-Arnold’s low cross from the right is intercepted, allowing Haaland to barrel forward at speed and with great power. He can’t barge his way through Huijsen, but Doku keeps things going, and eventually Semenyo has a shot that dribbles through to Courtois.
5 min: Now it’s Savinho’s turn to give the ball away cheaply. Brahim Diaz advances on the City box but like Doku before him, can’t decide what to do until it’s too late.
3 min: Pitarch ships possession in pitiful fashion near the centre circle, allowing Doku to take the ball off him with absurd ease. Doku dribbles hard down the inside-right channel, but can’t decide whether to shoot or to pass, and in the end does neither thing successfully. He had to take the shot on, with Real Madrid backtracking furiously.
2 min: Alexander-Arnold creams a long pass down the right – how Liverpool and their fans have been missing those – to Valverde, who can’t get the better of Dias. Otherwise, a quiet start.
The Atari-esque sprites of Manchester City get the ball rolling. The famous old pile might not be sold out, but it is noisy.
The teams are out! Real Madrid in their meringue whites, Manchester City in a green top with jet-set geometric squiggles all over it, and a chip embedded within the City crest that, if you were to wave a newfangled “smart electric telecommunications device” over it, unlocks a slew of bonus features for Pele’s Soccer on the Atari 2600 EA Sports FC 26. This is the sort of news that will either excite you or make you feel so very old and useless. Latest score: Excited 0-1 Old & Useless.
Pep Guardiola speaks to TNT Sports. “I am pretty sure [Erling Haaland is refreshed] … we play a lot against Madrid recently … the other time was the group stage … now it is knockout … different managers … different players on both sides … different game … it will be played for over 180 minutes and we have to play every single minute to deserve to stay in this competition.”
A reminder of what happened when these two teams last met, three months ago almost to the day. Oh Xabi, we hardly knew ye.
A pre-match snapshot of both camps. Sid Lowe and Jamie Jackson peer through the viewfinder so you don’t have to.
TNT Sports report that the Bernabeu isn’t sold out tonight. Not even for what the channel had moments before called “the rivalry in the modern Champions League era”. It’s almost as if familiarity breeds contempt.
Kylian Mbappé’s absence leaves a 13-goal-shaped hole in Real Madrid’s team. He’s the competition’s leading scorer by some considerable distance, give or take one 43-minute four-goal scoring burst during the Qarabag-Newcastle tie.
13: Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid)
10: Anthony Gordon (Newcastle United)
8: Harry Kane (Bayern Munich)
7: Julian Alvarez (Atletico Madrid), Erling Haaland (Manchester City), Victor Osimhen (Galatasaray)
The team news is a tale of two superstar strikers. Kylian Mbappé hasn’t recovered from his knee problem and is missing from the Real Madrid squad altogether. Erling Haaland however is back for Manchester City after being rested in the precautionary style for the FA Cup win at Newcastle last weekend. Marc Guéhi and Antoine Semenyo make their Champions League debuts.
The teams
Real Madrid: Courtois, Alexander-Arnold, Rudiger, Huijsen, Mendy, Valverde, Guler, Tchouameni, Pitarch, Diaz, Vinicius Junior.
Subs: Lunin, Gonzalez, Carvajal, Camavinga, Gonzalo Garcia, Asencio, Francisco Garcia, Aguado, Cestero, Mastantuono, Angel, Palacios.
Manchester City: Donnarumma, Khusanov, Dias, Guehi, O’Reilly, Rodri, Silva, Savinho, Semenyo, Doku, Haaland.
Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Reijnders, Stones, Ake, Marmoush, Cherki, Gonzalez, Ait-Nouri, Nunes, Foden, Alleyne.
Referee: Maurizio Mariani (Italy).
Preamble
For the fifth season in a row, Manchester City face Real Madrid in the knockout phase of the Champions League. Real have had the best of it during this sequence, winning in last season’s play-offs, the 2024 quarters and the 2022 semis … but City did emerge victorious in the 2023 semis, in some style, with a four-goal thrashing at the Etihad, and there’s also the small matter of the come-from-behind win at the Bernabeu during this season’s league phase. Tot everything up historically – five wins apiece from 15 meetings, City leading the aggregate score 26-25 – and this relatively modern rivalry is closely contested. Here comes the next chapter, then; good luck calling it. Kick-off is at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
