Kevin De Bruyne’s strike was the decisive think about securing Manchester City a 1-1 draw in opposition to Real Madrid, in a extremely fascinating and carefully contested first-leg battle of the Champions League semifinals on Tuesday.
The Belgian slammed Pep Guardiola’s guests’ stage after Vinicius Junior opened the scoring for the reigning champions from a distance in a equally spectacular vogue.
Madrid managed to utterly shackle deadly striker Erling Haaland however De Bruyne’s highly effective effort left the tie on a knife edge forward of the second leg in Manchester subsequent week.
The file 14-time winners knocked City out on the similar stage final season regardless of being outplayed in each video games and took the lead on the Santiago Bernabeu in opposition to the run of play.
However when Madrid discovered their stride within the second half, City – nonetheless chasing their first-ever Champions League trophy – hit again by way of De Bruyne.
Madrid central defenders David Alaba and Antonio Rudiger didn’t give Haaland room to breathe.
“We have to see if we can attack (better), Alaba and Rudiger were so close on Erling,” Guardiola instructed reporters.
“It was not easy to find the spaces. We’ll try to adjust something in the second leg to be more fluid and play with a bit more rhythm.”
The guests managed a lot of the primary half, with practically 70% possession however went in trailing on the break.
Thibaut Courtois fielded an early barrage of photographs from De Bruyne, Rodri and Haaland, as City dominated and Madrid sat again, absorbing the stress.
The hosts took the lead by way of a deadly counterattack 10 minutes earlier than the break, with Eduardo Camavinga surging previous Bernardo Silva, tearing into area and feeding Vinicius.
The Brazilian arrowed a strike into the highest left nook from virtually 25 yards, previous Ederson’s helpless dive. It was Madrid’s solely shot within the first half, however the sport’s simplest one.
“It’s normal that City have the ball, we don’t have to go mad about that,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti stated.
“After the goal we played very well, controlling the space, creating things, we played very well, I hope we can repeat it in the second leg.”
Haaland shut down
Alaba thwarted Haaland with a high quality block early within the second half, as Madrid saved the Norwegian objective machine below lock and key on his first look in opposition to them.
Madrid didn’t permit him a transparent sight of objective, making certain he couldn’t add to his 51 objectives from 46 video games this season throughout all competitions.
Rudiger, who performed forward of the suspended Eder Militao, put in among the finest performances of his Madrid profession.
“He had a fantastic game, clearly we have to highlight that,” stated Ancelotti.
“But everybody did, as a result of defensively we did very properly, they didn’t make many probabilities.
“They scored from outside the box … because the team had a great game on a defensive level.”
Madrid’s urgent was drastically improved after the break and so they pinned City again at instances, displaying way more initiative than they provided in the beginning.
However, with Los Blancos’ ascendent, City sucker-punched them, simply as Madrid did to the Premier League leaders within the first half.
De Bruyne slammed the guests stage with a shot from the identical vary as Vinicius’s opener, on the similar finish, hammered low previous Courtois.
“We started really well and then Vinicius finished cleverly,” stated Guardiola.
“Then when they were better than us, we scored a goal. We go to Manchester, it will be a final.”
Ederson palmed away a Karim Benzema header and a vicious Aurelien Tchouameni effort within the remaining levels making certain whoever wins subsequent week progresses.
“At the Etihad at the moment we feel unstoppable,” warned City winger Jack Grealish.
“I really enjoyed it tonight, I loved it.”
The second leg takes place on May 17, with the winner going through Inter Milan or AC Milan within the remaining.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
