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Maybe a bit of local context is helpful in analysing Manchester City’s performance in Madrid.
“It’s the Bernabeu, my friend,” Pep Guardiola said after Tuesday night’s entertaining 3-3 draw against Real Madrid. “You are from England. You do not understand what it means to play in the Bernabeu.”
Strange things happen here, as everybody remembers from the dramatic turnaround two years ago when Madrid seemed dead and buried but, suddenly, came back to life to do what they had done against Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain that year, scoring twice in succession en route to beating City 6-5 on aggregate.
Even then, though, City had managed to control things for about 88 minutes, something they replicated last year when they came away with a stale but impressive 1-1 draw in the first leg of their semi-final against the then-reigning champions. Evidently, then, this game did not go to plan given the regular bouts of chaos but the fact that City kept powering through regardless says quite a lot about them and their Champions League journey in particular.
“This game,” Guardiola says, “in the first one, two or three seasons together, we would have lost 4-1 or 5-1. We were not stable emotionally.
“In these games, one of the key points is being stable emotionally. It’s fundamental.”
Over the years, it has become obvious that Guardiola is very happy for the away first legs of Champions League knockout games to be tight, cagey affairs. He designs them that way.
In the last three matches here, across the past two years, City’s forwards have barely made a single run behind the home defence. Last year, in fact, Guardiola even tried to lull Madrid into a false sense of security by instructing some of his players not to even get into one-v-one dribbles with their opponents, so they could then flip the switch and overwhelm their opponents at the Etihad Stadium.
On Tuesday night, Madrid had a very true sense of security in the first half, knowing that as soon as City lost possession, which they did far more than usual in those first 45 minutes in particular, they could get the ball in behind Guardiola’s defenders and test their pace.
Ruben Dias calls for calm at the Bernabeu (Jose Manuel Alvarez/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
This needed to be a different kind of performance given City’s early lead was quickly reversed by two quickfire goals. The type which has removed them from the competition in previous seasons — most memorably here at the Bernabeu two years ago but also against Liverpool, Tottenham and Lyon before that. Some say it is a hallmark of Guardiola’s teams.
So what about the response? As Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face” — the implication being that once you feel that kind of blow, everything goes out the window. But City did their best to shrug those strikes off and throw plenty of flurries back.
“I said before: if you think you can come to the Bernabeu to play against Real Madrid in the Champions League and expect that the game plan is going to happen for 90 minutes, you are wrong,” Guardiola said.
“You have an idea, because we believe in the way we have to do it, but it’s impossible to control all the time against Real Madrid. How you are stable and stick with the plan in the bad moments is the key point. In the first seasons, we could not do it.”
City survived until half-time, gradually getting a foothold on the match but wary of what lay in wait if they lost the ball. When previewing the game on Monday, one of Spanish television’s many football shows showed highlights of City’s victory at Crystal Palace on Saturday and captioned Palace’s opening goal with the words ‘Stones lento’ — ‘Stones slow’.
John Stones was usually too high in midfield to even be the man chasing back in this match but Madrid had no fears getting at Manuel Akanji, City’s best bet at dealing with Vinicius Junior in the absence of Kyle Walker. Ruben Dias was living on the edge too, cleaning up his errors with last-ditch tackles.
After half-time, though, they looked much more like themselves. Madrid, for all of the ferocity of the first half, barely had a foray forward until they found themselves 3-2 down, the product of two thunderbolts from City. City looked less inhibited when they got to the final third — remember, that inhibition is sometimes instructed in these matches — and actually ensured they got to the final third without giving the ball away cheaply.
Josko Gvardiol celebrates putting City 3-2 ahead (Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)
Only once City had regained the lead and Luka Modric came on with 18 minutes to go did Madrid start to come back into it. There might be a lesson in there for City, though.
“The Bernabeu is special. They lived this situation many times,” Guardiola said. “We go to 2-3, ‘OK, 10 minutes left, the game is over’. Here, it is never over.”
There were things not to like from a City perspective, of course; aspects that could potentially turf them out of the competition next week in the return leg.
They will surely need more from Erling Haaland, who was marshalled well and contributed little, and even stalwarts like Bernardo Silva and Rodri were guilty of costly turnovers that exposed defenders who had to live on their nerves at times.
But if playing at the Bernabeu is a daunting prospect even for the best teams around, Madrid will know all about the difficulties of playing at the Etihad, especially these days.
(Top photo: Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)
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