Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had to reiterate to his players that they had beaten Real Madrid 4-3 in a Champions League semi-final classic at the Etihad on Tuesday.
Kevin De Bruyne, Gabriel Jesus, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva were on target for City, who held a two-goal lead thrice, but Karim Benzema’s double and a brilliant individual effort from Vinicius Junior gave Madrid hope of another famous UCL fightback at the Santiago Bernabeu on May 4.
Guardiola, who rued letting Liverpool escape in the English Premiership title race after a 2-2 draw at the Etihad nine days ago, will have similar regrets after a fine opening that could have seen City go 4-0 up inside 30 minutes.
Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema celebrates a goal on Tuesday
“I want to try to convince to my players that we won the game and we have to go to Bernabeu to play like we did today. It doesn’t matter if we would’ve won by one goal or four, at the Bernabeu you have to show who you are else there is no chance,” said Guardiola.
Madrid, the record 13-time European champions, were playing in their 30th semi-final to City’s third, but the English champions lived up to their favourites tag. Only 92 seconds had passed before the Madrid rearguard was breached by Riyad Mahrez’s quick feet and perfect cross for De Bruyne to stoop and head past Thibaut Courtois. Jesus pounced to make it 2-0 after just 10 minutes when David Alaba failed to deal with De Bruyne’s cross.
“We started the game very badly, too soft in conceding the goals. Then, we showed what we have recently, a great reaction. We have to defend better. If we defend better in the second leg we’ll win,” said Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti. “We never gave up. City are a great team, but kept working hard and got the three goals,” said Benzema, who has made the second leg interesting.
13
No. of goals Benzema has scored to become the joint top scorer of the season along with Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski
93
No. of seconds in which Kevin De Bruyne scored Manchester City’s fastest goal in a UCL semi-final
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
