Before the first whistle of Tuesday's Champions League semifinal match between Manchester City and Real Madrid, Manuel Pellegrini was handed an excellent opportunity to gain an upper hand — the injury-forced absence of Cristiano Ronaldo. With Madrid's biggest attacking threat off the pitch and Karim Benzema hobbled by his own injury, City had a chance to more easily contain their opponents' attack and get forward more freely themselves, hopefully grabbing a crucial lead to take into the second leg in Spain.
Manchester City wasted their best chance to beat Real Madrid
The English side could have gained an advantage against Real Madrid, but Manchester City let the opportunity slip through their fingers.
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They didn’t do that.
Instead of playing aggressively, Manchester City played more or less as they probably would have had Ronaldo played and Benzema been healthy — using an aggressive midfield press and a conservative deployment of their defense to starve Real Madrid's attack of sufficient service or space to work with. Instead of pressing the issue and trying to take advantage of an off-balance Madrid side, City's attack played the kind of opportunistic, counter-attacking game played by a team focused on not getting buried under the weight of their opponent's quality.
It was a tremendous waste of the opportunity City had at hand. Madrid had reacted poorly to the blows to their attack and themselves played a conservative, largely unimpressive game. The final stat sheet shows Los Merengues out-possessing and dramatically out-shooting Manchester City on the day, but watching the action on the field it was clear that the Spanish side was playing a much more constrained style very unlike their normal, aggressive selves. They were perfectly happy to take a draw and let the tie be decided in their home stadium instead of forcing the issue themselves and risk making a critical error.
The real pain of it for City fans is that Madrid’s defense wasn’t even all that impressive on the day. On the few occasions City did get forward, they caused a major threat almost every time. Heck, it was a minor miracle that they didn’t score late in the match when they actually made a concerted effort to try to get something out of the match. By then, though, it was too late — not enough time left and too much pressure on what time there was.
It certainly didn’t help City at all that David Silva left injured in the first half. He had been playing well, the one City attacker who looked terribly interested in driving forward and making something happen. His departure — coupled with substitute Kelechi Iheanacho not doing much of anything useful — allowed Madrid’s midfield to key on Kevin De Bruyne, effectively starving Sergio Agüero of quality service. But even with that factor in mind, it’s hard not to be disappointed with what City did on the pitch.
Maybe Manchester City can still make something of the tie in the second leg, stealing an early away goal to put the pressure on. But it’s difficult to look at how the first leg played out and not feel that City wasted a huge opportunity. Real Madrid were not at their best. They were there for the taking, but City didn’t step up to do the taking. It was not an opportunity that they can rely on repeating itself in the second leg, especially not in the Santiago Bernabéu, and to let it stroll on by without seizing it might just leave Manchester City filled with regret, and watching the Champions League final at home instead of playing it in Milan.
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