“Real Madrid against Manchester City is a classic,” former Real Madrid coach Jorge Valdano said on Tuesday ahead of the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final between the two clubs at the Santiago Bernabeu.
The match that followed disappointed. After the 3-3 draw in the Spanish capital last week, Madrid and City have exchanged 23 goals in their last five meetings. Many commentators described the match as worthy of a final, and on the contrary, it exceeded expectations, again.
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This season marks the third time in a row that Madrid and City have met in the round of 16 of Europe’s elite club competition. In 2021-22, Madrid’s magical comeback in the second leg of the semi-finals at the Bernabeu propelled them into the final. where Liverpool were beaten by 1-0. La last season, City put in a dominant performance at home to beat Carlo Ancelotti’s side 4-0 in the second leg before clinching their first Champions League title against Inter Milan.
The winners of the second leg in Manchester tonight (Wednesday) could win the trophy again, although that will require a quarter-final draw against either Arsenal or Bayern Munich, who will also contest their quarter-finals in Bavaria tonight.
In a season where Madrid have already beaten Barcelona twice, and against the backdrop of their eight-point lead over their Clasico rivals at the top of La Liga, this match against City holds the key to turning a smart crusade into an impressive one. for the Ancelotti group.
Madrid have long held European good fortune in the highest respect imaginable, perhaps at times to the detriment of their internal progress (for example, they have only won the Copa del Rey, the Spanish equivalent of the FA Cup in England, three times in the past 30 years). The story the club likes to tell about itself revolves around this more than anything. On Saturday, Barcelona will travel to the Bernabeu in La Liga. It’s a great game, although not as great as tonight’s at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
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But Valdano’s aim was not to completely forget about the history of Madrid’s rivalry with Barcelona and, in fact, he believes that recent encounters with City have taken on greater importance in part because of family ties.
“Clasicos are based on rivalry and (City coach and former Barcelona player and coach Pep) Guardiola is the Madrid player’s favourite foe,” he said. “Just listen to the reaction of the fans at the Santiago Bernabeu last week, after the spokesperson announced his call through the customer service system. He’s the one who blew the whistle the most.
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“But 10 years ago and five years ago we were all communicating Barcelona-Madrid. Today, the importance of football leads us to communicate Madrid-Ciudad as the best in the world.
“It’s very good, because history is being renewed. Cities are in full glory, which is complicated without prior context. Cities are new and economically influenced. Madrid is new in each and every one of the eras. They can adapt to hitchhiking. “
Since Guardiola’s arrival in Manchester in the summer of 2016, the two teams have met a total of seven times (today’s match will be their eighth), with Madrid winning once to City’s four.
In terms of European Cup and Champions League titles, Madrid have 14 (the first in 1956), while City’s only good fortune to date came here last season. Good fortune.
“Without a doubt, in the last seven or eight years, Madrid and City have been the two most successful teams,” said a dressing room source who, like others quoted here, preferred to remain anonymous because he had permission to speak.
“It’s true that City won it last year, but they came close to winning it a couple of times.
“You only have to look at the statistics to see that at the moment we are the two most productive groups in the Champions League,” said one of the sources.
Vicente del Bosque, a former Madrid coach and World Cup-winning coach with Spain in 2010, agrees.
“I think either group has dominated football in recent years and Madrid have maintained a normal level,” Del Bosque said. “I don’t forget 2022, with the name 14 and the comeback against City as the most spectacular.
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“City are one of the few groups that dominate Madrid with the ball, even if they have players to counter-attack. And Madrid look comfortable without the ball, taking advantage of transitions, even if they have players for possession.
“Now, in a debate about the European Super League, I think betting on those knockout games is better. I look at the sporting aspect, not the economic one, and that makes it more entertaining and more competitive.
“When I was a player, but also a coach, the big rival was Bayern Munich. Holland, with Ajax, and Italy, with AC Milan, also had groups that competed with us, but not as much. Now diversity has opened up.
Meanwhile, resources from the Real Madrid board agree that City are the team to beat. This is also because, since the arrival of Ferran Soriano as general manager and Txiki Begiristain as director (both, like the former Barcelona player Guardiola), City has grown as a club and earned the respect of Madrid, with whom it maintains a courtship of wonderful admiration.
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In this sense, Valdano dares to draw a parallel in the way the two groups are centrally structured around a single character.
“In Madrid, as at City, it’s transparent who’s in charge,” he concluded.
“In Madrid it’s (club president) Florentino Perez. At ÀCity everyone knows it and nobody says it, but Guardiola probably wouldn’t discover that he can work without a boss at any other club.
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(Top photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)