Champions League playoff, 2nd leg: Real Madrid 3 (Mbappe 4, 33, 61) Manchester City 1 (Gonzalez 90+2) − Real Madrid won 6-3 on agg
Pep Guardiola had asked his team to at least give the Santiago Bernabéu a fright; instead, they were the ones exposed to a terrifying truth, wearing a haunted hollow look. It is not just that Manchester City’s Champions League campaign is over, a Kylian Mbappé hat-trick sending Real Madrid through here; it is them. The team that Guardiola said was a machine for eight years is no more. City’s manager had said he was lying when he gave his team a 1% chance of going through, and so it proved: it was not even that high.
There was no comeback, not even a glimpse, of one. No epic, just the end. When they scored in the last minute, it was greeted with ironic cheers, this stadium continuing to laugh at them as they had done for some time now. The goal did not matter: the only bad news on a perfect night was the yellow card that means Jude Bellingham will miss the first leg against Bayer Leverkusen or Atlético Madrid. Real Madrid were superb, confirming that they are candidates for the competition they consider their own.
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City just weren’t. Carlo Ancelotti had said he didn’t want to face them. It was all reputation, no reality. Too many things have gone wrong for too long; even winter surgery could not fix them. There was a reason they had to play this round at all and a reason they will play no more; this was the team that had conceded four to PSG and Sporting, three to Feyenoord, how could they not be beaten by Madrid? It was over from the very start.
The goal that ended it, that broke the illusion that this was ever going to be a game, came as easy as it did early. City had kicked off, played the ball all the way back to Ederson, passed it up the pitch and down again, booted it out of play, got it back and played it about a bit more, slowly and aimlessly. All the while, Real Madrid just kind of stood there, waiting deep in a 4-4-2 and looking at the visitors as if to say: is that all you got? And then, when they got it for the first time, four minutes in, they scored.
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Oh, so that’s what you do. It was so simple it was almost ridiculous. Raúl Asencio speared the ball forward, a long way in a straight line over the City defence. Rúben Dias, leaning towards it, let it bounce. John Stones didn’t get there. Ederson didn’t get anywhere really, out of his goal and out of the game again, sold. Mbappé watched it sit up and then lifted it easily over him and into the net.
They were only four minutes in and City were finished. They are finished, perhaps. With no Kyle Walker, no Manuel Akanji and no Rico Lewis, it was instead a 20-year-old out of position, Abdukodir Khusanov, who was tasked with possibly the worst job in football, trying to deal with Vinícius Júnior, and Mbappé. Not that Josko Gvardiol was enjoying dealing with Rodrygo very much more on the other side. Worse, almost immediately John Stones was gone too, another man down.
When Gvardiol had a shot blocked by Aurélien Tchouaméni soon after, it was the only time City shot in the first half and it hardly registered. They hardly registered in fact. They didn’t even have more of the ball than Madrid; there was nothing there, just a team drifting their way through the night. What little they did was slow and aimless and if Madrid didn’t do more, it was because they didn’t need to. Every time they did put their foot down a bit, they escaped.
Vinícius took on Khusanov, who had no chance; Rodrygo left Ilkay Gündogan behind. Mbappé had two shots deflected, Federico Valverde struck wide. Vinícius turned Khusanov so easily on the halfway line, and ran into a wide open space. Nothing came of that, but it felt like a matter of time.
When Gündogan was booked on the half-hour, it was for taking out Rodrygo, which might at least have looked like some small rebellion but was more portrait of a man who just can’t. When at last Omar Marmoush was able to run, Asencio came and cut him down. And when Mbappé was again free over the top – this time it was Tchouaméni delivering a lovely dinked pass – and struck at Ederson, it was only a temporary let off, the second following shortly.
Again, it seemed so simple, so unobstructed, Madrid just superior. Vinícius found Rodrygo who went across the face of the area. Unsure, Khusanov started towards him, stopped, and saw (or didn’t see) the pass go through his legs. Mbappé stepped inside, left Gvardiol on the floor, and finished calmly. City looked lost, absent, aware that there was nothing there. They needed three goals now; one would have been a start. A single shot would have been something, but no. Instead, it was Madrid who got a third.
Mbappé, momentarily down after he crashed into Ederson in almost reaching a Valverde cross, the City keeper making a superb save, got back up again and scored. Coming inside, he guided a clean, low shot beyond Ederson and into the net like it was no big deal, which is how the whole thing had felt somehow. There was half an hour left, which was half an hour too long for City who were just being played with now, olés ringing around.
There was half an hour left but while there was one late goal – Nico González’s moment of nothingness – the game, like City, was finished. — Guardian
