A couple of years after their then chief executive Garry Cook said that Manchester City were on the right track to develop into “the biggest and best club in the world”, the result suggested he was right. It was September 2012, a 12 months after Cook’s resignation, and City’s second Champions League campaign was off to a spectacular start. Five minutes before the first match, Aleksandar Kolarov scored a goal from a free kick and made the team 2-1. Against Real Madrid. At the Bernabeu.
Then got here the comeback, with goals scored by Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo. It would not be the last goal conceded by City at the Bernabeu in stoppage time, but it surely was an illustration of Real’s ability to counter-attack in the name of established order. City haven’t won a single match on this Champions League campaign, supporting their group. Real reached the semi-finals; even this was not a hit by their standards.
City returns to the Spanish capital for the sixth visit in a dozen years and has already won eight victories on this 12 months’s competition, including 10 in a row since last 12 months’s draw at the Bernabeu. For all of Cook’s bravado and City’s trophies, many would still consider Real the best club in the world. However, City’s treble last 12 months earned them the title of best team. But given the proven fact that they were against one another, they’d probably be the two favorites at once; even before that, each believed the side was most definitely to keep the other.
If old and recent money were traveling on different paths to an identical goal, Real were City’s nemesis and antithesis reasonably than a task model.
Pep Guardiola grew up in a club that defined itself against Real: he had won six European Cups before he was born, he was the ball boy when Barcelona reached their first final, he was the midfielder after they belatedly became continental champions. Real, he said after the quarter-final draw, were the “kings of the competition”. He has argued for years that an establishment with such a track record has an inherent advantage. Even when City finally won their first Champions League in Istanbul last 12 months, with a straight face: “We are just 13 behind them. Be careful, Real Madrid.”
Two of Real’s 14 points got here after eliminating City; the decisive result of the Mancunians’ only triumph was a 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid at the Etihad Stadium in May last 12 months. Their story is one of three semi-finals: in the first and under Manuel Pellegrini, whose departure had already been confirmed with the arrival of Guardiola, City were too timid, settling for a good 1-0 defeat in Madrid, collecting only two shots on track in 180 minutes.
This triumph in 2016 was Real’s first hat-trick. This showed that they will win their competition. If each Guardiola and Barcelona have defined an era, the reality is that in the 16 years since he was appointed to the Nou Camp, each club and manager have won the Champions League thrice, including two together. Real have won it five times. This is their philosophy.
The last of these triumphs took place in 2022. This ability to discover a way to win was shown most dramatically against City. Guardiola’s side led the semi-final for 178 minutes before losing, and Rodrygo’s two goals in as many minutes made a surprising turnaround. If this was in line with the theme of City, then a specialist in the tragicomic ways of not winning the Champions League, it also provided the context for last 12 months’s 4-0 result that followed a attract the first leg in Spain: Real’s demolition ensured that this time at the least there was no no return.
City drew at the Bernabeu last season. Their lone victory could appear to be overshadowed by the proven fact that the return leg took place greater than five months later due to Covid and the reality that it was only made easier by perhaps City’s worst European night under Guardiola, a quarter-final defeat to a Lyon side who finished seventh in the Ligue Un .
However, the 2-1 lead to 2020, thanks to a five-minute substitution between Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne, was something of a landmark result. Since then, defeat to Lyon in the next round seems more like an aberration. Perhaps this marked the starting of City’s ascent to the elite level in Europe. Since then, they’ve been finalists, semi-finalists and winners in three consecutive seasons. Their current annual presence in the Champions League could be divided into three phases: a painful exit from the group stage under Roberto Mancini, a period of six seasons by which they reached the knockout rounds but often lost to the first top team they faced, after which a period as real contenders.
And so that they renew acquaintances with Real Madrid as equals and opposites. Barcelona was more of a touchstone for City; which is comprehensible considering they took over the hierarchy from Camp Nou, in Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain, laying the groundwork for Guardiola’s signing. One peculiarity is that Real have the best English midfielder in Jude Bellingham, and City have the best Spanish midfielder in Rodri.
Although City’s first signing under Sheikh Mansour was Robinho, a press release made by Real, the team rarely tried to sign the Galacticos after Cook’s initial spree. And City’s financial strength is such that Real cannot raid them for stars; There has long been a theory that Sergio Aguero would have loved to return to the Spanish capital, but he never did. Now plainly Real are interested by Erling Haaland, but that does not imply it can be easy to pry him from City.
Perhaps, due to this fact, there might be a contest fit for the twenty first century on the transfer market. Now there’s an increasing number of familiarity on the pitch. Next week’s return leg might be their twelfth meeting in 12 seasons: as many games as City have played against Sunderland in that point, greater than against Bolton or Blackburn, Leeds or Nottingham Forest – each Sheffield clubs combined. Their schedule took on a unique look.
It might have been different. City were initially handed a two-year ban from the 2020 Champions League, 11 days before Jesus and De Bruyne struck at the Bernabeu, but this was later overturned. Real was the leader of the Super League conspirators. Instead, they’ve develop into the annual battle of the Champions League and maybe their dominant duopoly. And as has been the case for much of his playing and managerial profession, Guardiola faces old Barcelona foes. Be careful, Real Madrid.
Credit : www.independent.co.uk
