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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!
