Champions League: Real Madrid v Manchester City

[mike412]

If you get a chance, watch a replay of the entire match, or, at a minimum, watch the highlights.

Six of the best goals you ever will see. Periods where Man City dominated possession and RM hardly touched the ball, followed by one of RM’s insanely-quick counterattacks. And, despite giving up 3 goals, some terrific goalkeeping by RM’s young, Ukrainian GK, who was signed as a backup after Courtois went down and had played so well after being inserted into the starting lineup that some Madristas are questioning whether he shouldn’t be resigned and given the starting job.

I hate RM, but in some ways I love the way they play and this game was the ultimate display of the good and bad in their DNA.


DeBruyne didn’t play and if he is healthy for the match in Manchester the second leg could even top this one. What a match!

 

[Fk_Pitt]

DeBruyne didn’t play and if he is healthy for the match in Manchester the second leg could even top this one. What a match!

Typical Ancelotti master class yesterday. What a match! Typical away match for Carlo.

Manchester City shots-33
Real Madrid-8

Possession 67% for Man city, 33% for Real Madrid.

Man City 859 completed passes
Real Madrid 350.

And guess who won? Real Madrid.

And why? Because they got it to penalties and Pep subbed out DeBruyne and brought on Kovacic. And I love Kovacic, I’ll be forever grateful that he helped my team win a champions league, but when he stepped up to take a penalty I wondered why in the heck he of all people would be taking one, and sure enough he missed. And Real Madrid didn’t, and they advance.

These are the two biggest clubs in soccer and it should have been the final. A round of 8 clash was crazy.

 

[mike412]

33 shots and very few of them were good shots. Ancelotti used 5 at the back to keep them at the periphery. And playing Jack Grealish for 72 minutes didn’t help Pep. He was dreadful.

Ancelotti’s strategy was to play for PKs from halftime on. If they could get a chance on the counter, all the better. But 2 shots, neither on goal in the second half.

The amazing thing is that individually RM’s 5 defenders are not that good. Rudiger is the only one who is arguably world class. Vasquez is a MF playing RB; Nacho is plodding; Mendy gets beat a lot 1 on 1; etc. But, he had them playing as a brick wall. It was a master class. And when Bernardo Silva took a weak penalty shot right into Lunin’s hands with City up 1-0, I knew it was over.