Cristiano Ronaldo Nets Winner For Madrid In 3-2 Thriller

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

And... uh, wow. City have replied with a goal.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

And then the defender lets Angel di Maria nick the ball off him, eventually conceding a corner. From said corner, the ball falls straight to Pepe, who does... nothing. While in acres of space. Eventually he opts to cross the ball in straight to a Manchester City defender, which has the expected result.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Manchester City have not looked sharp in the first half, but they’re keeping a clean sheet at the Santiago Bernabeu. Real Madrid have had all of the possession and all of the chances in the first half of the Champions League encounter between the two teams, but the score is locked up at 0-0 after 45 minutes.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Oops, now Nasri’s down hurt. Jinxed it.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

The Belgian centre half had no more luck against Ronaldo than his teammate, getting turned inside out before falling over and allowing his opponent to get a shot away. The ball is destined for the bottom corner, but a superb fingertip stop from Hart deflects it just wide for a corner. Said corner comes to more or less nothing, but the pressure’s still on -- City are really under the cosh here. Hart saves again from Ronaldo a few minutes later, not quite as spectacularly.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

For more on the Merengues, head over to Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid. For more on the Citizens, check out Manchester City blog Bitter and Blue. We have live coverage of the game in our Real Madrid vs. Manchester City StoryStream. For more on the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Real Madrid vs. Manchester City isn’t the sort of match that’s supposed to kick off Group D of the UEFA Champions League. It looks like a particularly delicious quarterfinal tie, the sort you get when the group winners start meeting each other for the first time. But nope. Instead the defending champions for the two strongest leagues on the planet will be facing off in the group stages, and although you’d still expect both to emerge from the Group of Death (TM), any slipups here will be very, very painful.

In the main, that means that the pressure is on Real Madrid to stop being so awful. They’re the home side and they’re also the better team, so they should be able to come away with three points. Any fewer, and they’re suddenly looking at some major problems, because Borussia Dortmund are a good enough team to punish any slip from either of the two giants. And Madrid have made a habit of dropping points this season -- their return from four matches in La Liga this year has been a win, a draw, and two straight losses.