Manchester City booked their place in the Champions League final by beating Real Madrid 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium with Bernardo Silva scoring twice, a second-half own goal from Eder Militao and a late strike from Julian Alvarez.
Pep Guardiola’s side will hope to lift their first European Cup against Inter Milan in the Turkish city of Istanbul on June 10, as their bid for the treble continues — with the Premier League title and FA Cup also within their grasp.
Here our writers analyse the key talking points from a dominant display.
Opening salvo to savour for City
Bernardo Silva’s opening goal of Wednesday’s second leg hit the back of the Real Madrid net after 22 minutes and 42 seconds.
Before that, Manchester City had 81 per cent of the possession. They had completed 202 passes to Real’s 28. Two City players had made more passes on their own than Real had as a team. Vinicius Junior and Federico Valverde had not completed a pass at that stage. City goalkeeper Ederson had found a team-mate on four occasions: only two Real players had more than that.
But the numbers hardly do justice to what a visceral thrill those first 22 minutes and 42 seconds were. City charged in, delivering precision jabs with the speed and intensity of a crazed, windmilling MMA fighter. This was Operation: Overwhelming Force, shock and awe, whatever you want to call it.
Thibaut Courtois made at least one miraculous save, put in one of the best halves of his life and still went in at the break 2-0 down. After the first goal, Vinicius Junior went over to Carlo Ancelotti on the touchline as if to ask, “What do you expect us to do with that?” After the second, Ancelotti stared blankly into the middle distance, his hand over his mouth, Real Madrid’s four-time Champions League-winning manager at a complete loss. The reigning European and world champions had absolutely no idea what to do.
“It’s nothing special,” said City manager Pep Guardiola before the game, about his attacking plans. In one sense he was telling the truth, because the theory here wasn’t especially complicated or intricate. In another, it was about as special as you can get, because who else could do that?
Nick Miller
Real ‘suffer’ too much
“To have moments of suffering, when you have to hold on, is normal,” said Carlo Ancelotti pre-game. His stalwart midfielder Luka Modric also stressed how Real’s experience meant they were confident they could deal with any situation they found themselves in.
And suffer they did during the game’s opening quarter. City completely dominated and Modric and his team-mates hardly had a kick. Yet neither Ancelotti nor his team did anything different in response, they seemed completely passive. It appeared they assumed Thibaut Courtois could keep them in it with his saves, and expected City’s dominance to eventually pass.
After Bernardo Silva’s opener, Madrid did stir a bit, with Toni Kroos hammering a 25-yarder off the crossbar. But they were again complacent at the back as Bernardo soon made it 2-0.
Ancelotti’s side have extricated themselves from many tight spots in this competition over the last few seasons. At this stage against City last year, they needed two goals with just minutes left in the second leg at the Bernabeu, and they got them to eventually progress.
But this time it was different, and Real’s confidence they could come through any amount of suffering had caught up on them.
Dermot Corrigan
Bernardo Silva: Space man
Oh, Bernardo. It is very hard not to wonder how you do it. How do you find space so effortlessly, so frequently, so naturally? One swish of that left boot to lift the ball over Thibaut Courtois. A perfectly weighted header to drop the ball into the net for a second time on the night. The smallest man on the pitch, wearing a shirt that always seems a size too big.
Seriously, is it just an innate gift? That movement, that appreciation of space, the anticipation of knowing where the ball is going to come. And then the calmness to make sure that, if Toni Kroos isn’t going to follow your run, or Luka Modric stands as still as a stalagmite, they aren’t going to get away with it.
This isn’t the first time Bernardo, given a licence to roam, has shaped a big occasion to his will. Never before, though, has this diminutive, elusive player been so effective among a Who’s Who of the Champions League’s elite.
We were reminded in the process why Bernardo is a Pep Guardiola favourite. Take the ball, cherish it, treat it like a friend. Pass it to a team-mate, keep moving, make yourself available to take it again. And repeat. Make an impact, get behind the opposition lines.
It’s a simple formula, but it also takes something special to perfect it at this level. And Bernardo, plainly, is special.
Daniel Taylor
Real Madrid: Bizarrely blunt
This was a night every single one of Real’s players will be desperate to forget — seriously, the Madrid press pack are going to need Geiger counters when they sift through the wreckage of this one — but the champions’ three forwards came up particularly short.
At his best, Rodrygo is a subtle, nagging force, adept at finding little pockets of space. Here, he was subdued to the point of absence. An overhit would-be through ball to Karim Benzema was his only contribution to the first half and the only surprise was that he lasted until 80 minutes before being hooked.
(Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Vinicius Junior had a couple of fleeting moments of promise at the start of the second half, getting two City players booked with trademark surges, but that was pretty thin gruel compared to what we have come to expect. It was notable that he spent the latter stages of the game miles away from the left wing — as good a summary as any of how well Kyle Walker had managed him all night.
Benzema was arguably the biggest disappointment of all. The Frenchman barely mustered a touch of note all evening, repeatedly getting manoeuvred off the ball by Ruben Dias and John Stones. There are some mitigating factors here — Benzema has missed three of Real’s last four league games due to lingering fitness worries — but it was galling to see such a brilliant footballer so far from his best.
Jack Lang
Rodri and Walker flawless
How many player of the match trophies does UEFA have? Because it is impossible to split the contributions of Bernardo Silva, Kyle Walker and Rodri to what we just watched.
There were plenty of others, too, but those three may not have put a foot wrong all evening.
Considering the stakes, the opposition, the importance of every little detail, there can be no higher praise than that. Walker said he did not want to become a meme ahead of the game, after Vinicius Junior tried to rainbow flick him last week, and their battle was billed as key to this game. It was not quite key but Walker won it hands down. Did the Brazilian get the better of him even once? Incredible.
And then Rodri, the octopus in midfield who always picks the right passes and just knows where to be to mop up the loose balls. Real fought harder in the second half but it was often Rodri who stopped them, nicking the ball back at the right moment. Monstrous performances from the three of them, closely followed by everybody else in blue.
Sam Lee
What now for Ancelotti, Modric and Kroos?
Asked on Spanish TV before the game, Carlo Ancelotti said that, “If we win, to the final; if we lose, the door.” When the reporter paused for a second, the Italian quickly clarified that he meant his team leaving the competition, not him leaving his job as Real Madrid coach.
The mini-confusion was due to so much speculation over Ancelotti’s future through recent months. Real president Florentino Perez dismissed the possibility after they won the Copa del Rey final against Osasuna earlier this month, but the Bernabeu hierarchy have been unhappy at how their team gave no challenge at all to Barcelona as defending champions in La Liga this year.
Perez has often complained about how Manchester City being owned by Abu Dhabi makes it impossible for his club to compete with them financially. So it would be incoherent to then sack a coach for being unable to beat them in a Champions League semi-final. But then, Perez is a man who makes his own rules. And losing to Pep Guardiola will have hurt him personally.
Just like last year, Ancelotti took off both Luka Modric and Toni Kroos with his team needing two goals late in the second half.
The Croatian, 37, and German, 33, are out of contract at the end of June, so in theory this could have been their last games for Real in the competition. Both have been seen as more likely to renew for one more year, but how City dominated midfield in large periods of both legs may make Perez think again about pushing harder for Borussia Dortmund’s 19-year-old Jude Bellingham.
Although Karim Benzema, 35, also struggled to have any impact on the tie, the current Ballon D’Or will stay at the Bernabeu next year. Real scoring just once across both legs against City could well mean he has competition from another top striker come August, however.
Dermot Corrigan
Where does this win rank?
Where does that stand among the great performances by English clubs in the Champions League? In the last few years at least, it’s tough to think of one that compares.
The mind immediately goes back to those extraordinary semi-finals in 2019, when Liverpool and Tottenham produced implausible comebacks to beat Barcelona and Ajax respectively. But they were more collective acts of will, combined with a bit of luck, rather than expressions of outright dominance.
Manchester United’s 7-1 demolition of Roma in 2007 has to be up there, but that wasn’t against a team who had previously held some sort of psychological hold over this competition, overcoming the sense that if Real Madrid want to win, they will.
Chelsea’s remarkable rearguard in Barcelona in 2012 is memorable, and was great in a manner of speaking, but it was also something of a freak, the sort of game that if you replayed it another 100 times, Chelsea would lose 95 of them.
Tonight was a perfectly constructed expression of dominance by Manchester City, starting off with the early blitz, slowing down and maintaining control once a lead had been established, then picking off a team that had to chase things to make the scoreline more accurately reflect the performance. Perfection.
Nick Miller
So what do I need to know about the final?
City will face Inter Milan — the clubs’ first ever competitive meeting — on Saturday, June 10 at the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey. It is the third time UEFA has tried to stage a recent Champions League final there after it had to be moved in 2020 and 2021 — to the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Porto respectively — because of that country’s COVID-19-enforced travel restrictions.
