The 14 times champions league winners, Real Madrid get revenge on Pep Guardiola’s men after they were knocked out by Manchester City in last season’s competition.
After a thrilling encounter at the Bernabeu which saw the game finish 3-3, it was all to play for in Manchester.
However, it was Los Blancos that took advantage in the tie early on ,when Vinicus Junior played a brilliant cross across the six yard box to Rodrygo, who fired home on the second attempt after a spectacular Ederson save inside 12 minutes.
Manchester City responded well though when De Bruyne found space inside the box and tried to pick out Erling Haaland but Lunin was quick to cut it out.
However, Bernardo Silva put the ball back into Haaland and he saw his header clip the crossbar, before Silva put the rebound wide.
On 26 minutes, De Bruyne unleashed a vicious effort on goal but was saved well by Lunin.
In the second half, there was a moment of panic in the Real Madrid department as Nacho Fernandez took it round his own keeper but was able to recover and clear the ball off the line.
The Manchester City pressure eventually resulted in good fortunes, as a bit of individual magic from Jeremy Doku resulted in his cross ricocheting off Rudiger into the path of Kevin De Bruyne, to smash home the equaliser for Manchester City on 76 minutes.
De Bruyne went from hero to zero, as he missed a glorious opportunity to put City ahead in the tie, when Manuel Akanji picked him out in the box but he blazed his shot over the bar.
90 minutes weren’t enough to separate the two teams and the game went to Extra time.
With both sets of players huffing and puffing, there wasn’t really any clear cut opportunities for either team to get a winner and terrors of a penalty shootout awaited them.
Julian Alvarez stepped up first for Manchester City and he buried his penalty into the bottom right hand corner.
Real Madrid on the other hand, missed their first pen when Ederson saved Luka Modric’s penalty to put City in pole position.
However, a really soft penalty from Bernardo Silva was comfortably saved by Lunin followed by a calm and collective penalty from Jude Bellingham meant the tie was level again.
Mateo Kovacic was the next culprit to miss his penalty and Real Madrid were on the verge of a semi final appearance.
Astonishingly, Ederson stepped up to take Manchester City’s final penalty to keep his team alive, by comfortably finding the back of the net.
Antonio Rudiger stepped up for Real Madrid to win the penalty shootout and send them through to face Bayern Munich in the last four.
-
What the Managers had to say
Pep Guardiola went onto say:
”Johan Cruyff said luck doesn’t exist, I agree with him. Losing like this hurts. We feel bad tonight but we have done all we can".
”What can I say to these players. We have shown we can play against a big side like Real Madrid. What more could we have done?”.
Carlo Ancelotti said:
“I believe that there was no other way to beat Manchester City here. I’m proud of what we did”.
”By the time the penalty shootout came, we were totally convinced we’d go through. You work, sacrifice and win however you can”.
”We defended really, really well tonight. This was about survival. Madrid is a club based on always fighting to stay in situations where there seems to be no way out- but we always find a way”.
-
Man of the Match
Andriy Lunin was the hero for Real Madrid has he saved two penalties and was instrumental through out the game by making ten saves. He kept his team in the game and was rewarded for his efforts by progressing to the Semi Finals of the Champions League.