The Real tummy ache for Madridistas
The Manchester City team was immensely superior to Real Madrid. They scored four goals, and if it weren’t for Courtois, it could have been seven. After the match, the goalkeeper, Ancelotti, Carvajal, Modric, Kroos, and Vinicius admitted that the opponent had been better, plain and simple. Captain Benzema was nowhere to be seen on the pitch, nor did he make any remarks after the defeat, and his absence is one of the keys to this monumental blow.
End of a Real Madrid era?
The possibility of City defeating Real Madrid at their home stadium was always within the realm of possibilities. After all, the last time Pep Guardiola suffered a Champions League defeat at the Etihad was five years ago, in September 2018 against Lyon. However, the one-sidedness, the domination, the helplessness, inflicted a great deal of damage.
As Pep said immediately after the match, “We have played with the pain in our guts since what happened last year, and we have poured it all into our energy and desire.”
Now, the gut-wrenching pain has shifted sides, and it will be Madrid who will endure it until they can seek revenge and triumph once again. And if there’s one thing that Real Madrid has demonstrated throughout its history, it’s that a comeback is never too far away.
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Los Blancos have won five Champions League titles in the last nine years and reached 11 semifinals out of the last 13. Last season, they achieved this feat by eliminating PSG, Chelsea, Manchester City, and then Liverpool in the final. They had turned the extraordinary into the ordinary, which is why the descent to planet Earth, to the normalcy of losing instead of winning, hits particularly hard.
A day after the defeat, the fans were fuming and would have got rid of the lot of them, starting with Ancelotti. However, the club— in essence Florentino Pérez — is obliged to calmly analyse what is needed, not just to win the Champions League next season, but to compete for the league until the very end and not resign six weeks before it concludes.
Reaching the Etihad to fight for the possibility of reaching the final is commendable. It is the 14-point gap that allowed Barcelona to be crowned champions that should twist the guts of Real Madrid supporters.