Three defeats in their last three visits. No victory in five previous in twelve years in which Real Madrid associated the Etihad Stadium with bad news. Eight goals conceded in their last two games at Pep Guardiola’s temple. Where Manchester City has not lost in 41 games. It is the great challenge to overcome by the king of the competition.
It is the stadium of the dominating teams of English football that resists Real Madrid. They also did not beat Arsenal at the old Highbury, where they drew. But he conquered Anfield twice, every time he set foot there. In another two in five visits to Manchester United’s ‘Theatre of Dreams’. Also two recent joys at Stamford Bridge. The Etihad is terrain to conquer.
Only San Siro, where Real Madrid lost to Milan in their first five matches in the European Cup and tied in the two most recent, worsens their away numbers compared to the Etihad Stadium, a venue in which they have never managed to win in five matches. .
With a recent bad memory that you want to erase from your memory. The unappealable 4-0 of the last semi-finals, on a day in which Real Madrid did not compete and Carlo Ancelotti left a failed approach. With Eduardo Camavinga touched on a left back’s knee. Without Antonio Rüdiger, who had saved Erling Haaland in the Santiago Bernabéu’s one-goal draw. Without a defensive midfielder like Aurélien Tchouaméni.
A double by Bernardo Silva in the first half was a blow to which there was no response on this occasion from a team accustomed to performing feats in Europe. An own goal from Éder Militao and a pin from Julián Álvarez gave shape to one of Real Madrid’s dark nights in the Champions League. The heaviest defeat for ‘Carletto’ on the Madrid bench, for which he has the opportunity to avenge.
The Etihad has been the scene of two eliminations of Real Madrid from the ‘Champions’, in 2020 and 2023, and is on its way to becoming a cursed stadium if the counterattacking ability of Vinícius, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham does not prevent it on the sixth visit to City’s house.
Scenario where Real Madrid has experienced a strange feeling of inferiority that is not usual. He toured his body at the beginning of August 2020, in the Champions League of the pandemic that disrupted the dates when the coronavirus stopped football.
It caused more than five months to separate two games in which the team then led by Zinedine Zidane, lost by the same result. Both at the Santiago Bernabéu and at the Etihad (2-1), with no option for a comeback due to two serious errors by a hesitant Raphael Varane that buried the hope of a draw that Karim Benzema had signed.
Until then, despite not having won in Manchester, Real Madrid dominated the duels. He had never been defeated in an official match. Winner of two matches at the Bernabéu, drawing two in his first matches at the Etihad. In November 2012 the debut, when he achieved a victory that was prevented by the Argentine ‘Kun’ Agüero from a penalty after Benzema’s early goal (1-1).
No goals in the reunion four years later, in the first leg of the semifinals in 2016, in a serious match that gave way to a duel full of tension at the Bernabéu. The fortune factor decided the return when the Brazilian Fernando scored in his own goal after a cross from the Welshman Gareth Bale that ended up in Joe Hart’s corner. The last one with the Chilean Manuel Pelligrini on the ‘citizen’ bench.
The arrival of Pep Guardiola changed the confrontation. Since he has led City, the Manchester team has only lost one game out of seven, and in extra time. He has won four and drawn two. After Varane’s worst night, he defeated Real Madrid at the Etihad after a survival exercise by Ancelotti’s men who lost 2-0 in eleven minutes due to goals from Kevin de Bruyne and Gabriel Jesus, saved by Benzema before the break.
Every blow of City’s second act was responded to by the Madridistas. Vinícius and again Benzema, with a Panenka-style penalty eight minutes from time, signed a 4-3 that left the door of hope open before the craziest comeback at the Bernabéu, the two goals in less than two minutes from Rodrygo and the assault on the fourteenth.
The numbers that play against Real Madrid at the Etihad, where they drew two games and lost in their last three visits, leave eleven goals conceded for five scored in five previous games – an average of 2.2 per game -, and only five to favor. In two events, the champion of fourteen European Cups was left without scoring, facing his greatest challenge. EFE
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