FULL REACTION to Real Madrid vs. Man City: Benzema & Co. do the UNTHINKABLE…AGAIN! | ESPN FC

how have real madrid done this again i have no idea the truth is that they were dead and i mean when i say dead they were dead dead dead maybe not buried the only people that believe that real madrid still had an opportunity after the 90th minute was the real madrid players maybe maybe because there was no reason to believe from what we had seen in the game that there was a comeback from real madrid that they were going to be able to recreate what they did against psg and chelsea manchester city were as comfortable as you could possibly be in a semi-final second like santiago bernabeu against real madrid there was no momentum from real madrid like there was in those other games there was nothing nothing to hang on to and then rodrigo scored and what amazes me is not only the response of real madrid but how quickly it falls apart for a team like manchester city and we criticized psg and we criticized chelsea and we have to criticize manchester city as well how quickly it fell apart but before we get to manchester city focusing on real madrid self-belief is an overwhelmingly powerful thing and this team has it in bunches and the history of recent success of this club and this group of players in moments like this is the only thing that you can hang on to and men they do it better than anybody else in the world this team this group of players this whole club in champions league is something else it's something special something that cannot be touched they are something special to watch in moments like this so many factors to break down what do you think the turning point was in the game stevie i think there's no question that if mendy doesn't clear that ball off the line then then they're buried as ali was talking about because that gave them that still gave them the chance i mean courtois made another save after that as well they're both relish yeah yeah both from both from greelish so the they they've been hanging on by a thread since the referee blew the whistle in the first leg let's be honest they got completely outplayed in the false leg somehow only come away one behind they did nothing in the first 90 minutes of this game to suggest they didn't even look as though they were behind the way they played the fact that they didn't get shot on target before 90 minutes tells you all you need to know they they didn't look as though they were in any harity score i mean they were just it was just incredible which is why there was people leaving the bernabeu in the 90th minute because they thought it was done as well and then all of a sudden rodrigo i mean just fantastic ron just takes the gamble and all of a sudden that belief just appears and sucks the life out of manchester city gavit's a strange thing to say but you almost wonder if city scoring was the most dangerous part of it because then suddenly real madrid kicked into that remontada mode you you would think so except a lot of time passed between city scoring and rodrigo equalizing in the 89th minute uh you know there's a famous juanito uh quote about how 90 minutes is an eternity of the bernabeu sure but there was no sense of urgency and you could look at it both ways you can say well they were being patient um yeah maybe patience maybe lack of urgency then is this the other is the flip side of patients isn't it so i it was it was remarkable certainly i for me you know would obviously mendy is the turning point but then you could also point to that you know without that that incredible save by courtois off of off of greelish we're not we don't we're not we're having a different conversation now so um i just hats off i don't know how to do it it's voodoo it's it's supernatural and it's happened so many times that um you know you really have to wonder so why did anyone count them out l.a why did anyone count them out when it was just a goal advantage for city and we knew it was back at the santiago bernabeu for the second leg because that 4-3 result at manchester city was the best possible result that real madrid could have hoped for on the night they were largely outplayed manchester city created quality chances not not half chances quality chances consistently in that game so logic would suggest would tell you that if indeed real madrid was going to open up and they had to go and win the game against manchester city at home that even more opportunities would be available to manchester city and that they would be able to control the game and while manchester city were not all that expensive they still created enough opportunities and most of all they were in full control of the pace of the game so the reason you overlook real madrid at your own peril by the way and this is something that we have said time and time again overlooked real madrid at your own peril you you tend to go down that direction because manchester city were far superior significantly superior to real madrid more so than the one gold would suggest and then 90 minutes happen and over 90 minutes you still maintain you know what yeah manchester city is a better team than real madrid but then things just turn so quickly and it almost feels like this group of players like santiago bernabeu they are touched by forces beyond our understanding because there is nothing logical about how the last few minutes of that game transpire and there is nothing logical from our experiences to suggest yeah manchester city somehow are going to collapse and real madrid somehow are going to turn this around we had no evidence of it over this 90 minutes we had evidence against chelsea and evidence against psg but the difference was significant between these two clubs and we thought that it would be enough for manchester city and it wasn't tap no i i completely agree that the gulf and superiority was there and you know ultimately i don't think it's any secret uh that real madrid's game plan was we're a goal down let's keep it tight let's wait for them to make a mistake and then if it's the only one in the last 15 minutes we throw the kitchen sink and hope for the best and you know in the end that's the nature of the sport it's low scoring it often doesn't make sense um it doesn't mean that you don't deserve it if you can go and pull it around while being outplayed it's just what makes the sport different from from basketball it's a low scoring game and you get these situations um if edison reacts to that little bit more quickly if he gambles a little bit on on benzema's ball we don't have this conversation i'm not saying it's edison's fault but there's so many little tiny things you put that you put the the mendy clearance the courtois save all these things put together and you get what we have here tonight carlo ancelotti said after the game how history almost favors them in their own heads how can that happen because this is rodrigo scoring two goals he's 21 years old really he has nothing to do with the history of real madrid and yet they all have that belief instilled within them well the key is the the key is the first goal from rodrigo because what that does is puts pressure on the opposition and regardless of whether you have great football playing centre-backs if you have and i'm talking particularly about the two city centre-backs because in my opinion if you really look back at all the goals both laporte and diaz have caused at least four of them you know gab's talking about edison maybe if they'd come and and come out and grab that cross well diaz should have been attacking the ball diaz should have been attacking the cross listen real madrid's equalizer is a ball thrown in to the penalty box that a sunday league side would do it's not it's not fantastic one two play and uh dribbling you know rabona's it's nothing it's nothing like out of the ordinary it's a ball thrown in and you've got two big big long center backs six foot odd who neither of them get anywhere close to the ball when rodrigo scores what is that hold on diaz horrible bit of defending gives the penalty away so you know if i'm city i can look at the chances missed and i look at the mistakes defensively that completely change and it's basically if you throw a bone to a team like real madrid particularly in the bernabeu with the ability they have then they're going to take it every day of the week and that's what they've done they've taken advantage of every single little bone and sniff that they were given not just in this game but but in the chelsea one and the psja one they've taken advantage of every single one how long can that last well it's obviously a huge help but if you're a young player there and somebody says you know the history you know that it happened you know they're famous for these comebacks is that all it takes to know okay i'm part of this now no no no no you're part of it but you need to prove that you're indeed part of it that you're going to live through that history and that you're going to prove your place in that history and that's exactly what a guy like rodrigo has done that comes on the field and it's not just this game we go back to the chelsea game that that game was also on the balance for real madrid they it felt like they were dead back then and it felt like one of the key plays was a big save from courtois in that game against chelsea and then rodrigo scores a big goal and then rodrigo scores a big goal today again and then rodrigo scores another big goal today and you do you talk about details in a game and how things change and it's just a matter of inches here and there and everywhere there's a deflection in that cross for the second goal by rodrigo today by marco ascencio who flicks it on to rodrigo who's already jumped and somehow he makes an adjustment and has the header you would think that rodrigo has been scoring goals like that naturally his whole life now whether we can point to history and say well it must have been history that elevated rodrigo for this header sure you can go down that path if you so desire the truth is it self-belief and i'll go back to that walking the hallways of real madrid and the training facility and santiago bernabeu you see all the trophies you see the history of the club and you know full well that magical nights of santiago bernabeu and champions league is something special because there is an expectation now we're just going to go back to this season let's not go back to all the other magical nights that they've had at santiago bernardo just this season alone if you had any doubts of what being a real madrid player in champions league means just look at what they've been able to do in this run and stevie just said how long can that last i have no idea i have no clue how long can this last because they should have been done against psg this should have been done against chelsea they should have been done against manchester city and here they are with an opportunity to go into a final where everybody's gonna say liverpool are favorites liverpool are favorites but they are you know yeah absolutely they are i'm not denying that talking logic yes unfortunately logic doesn't work with this team are you happy that it's real madrid in the finals absolutely if you give me a chance before this game kicked off i would absolutely have said i would rather play against real madrid than manchester city and and yes you can point to all these i mean just just the football gods are shining on them something wrong right now but they can't last forever logic just tells you that you can't keep doing this and they've still got to do it again because they're playing against a better side than them as they were against man city as they were against chelsea and probably as they were against psg they're all better says than them but somehow the soccer courts have pulled them through again i hear you laughing i mean sometimes it's all you can do when you can't explain this voodoo as you're saying no and look um i was there in 2005 in in istanbul when when liverpool were were three nil down thoroughly outplayed and then the space of eight minutes scored three goals and then one on penalties right and you know you talk about logic there was no logic to that whatsoever um and it's funny and maybe it's maybe it's karma uh although i think carl and children might say that karma's repaid him back in bundles because between sergio ramos's goal in lisbon last minute of the champions league final to equalize against atletico madrid and then the paris saint-germain game and then the chelsea game and then tonight um yeah i mean istanbul was painful but you know he got his own coming back so now let's get to man city because psg was slaughtered by the panel after real madrid came back against them should city be slaughtered after what we saw over the two legs no i don't think should they be slaughtered for what happened tonight i don't think they should be slaughtered no listen i had had manchester city turned up tonight and lost four nil and got completely outplayed and embarrassed and that way then they would have deserved to be slaughtered but the fact is certain little things didn't go their way that turned into be enormous things what does it mean their fault they didn't go their way right well of course you can you can i've just started here and told you that both centre-backs in my opinion are one of the other there were two two reasons yeah they didn't take the chances and the goals they lost were avoidable those are the two main reasons why this team has gotten beaten but i don't think they deserve to be slaughtered you know you can't please make mistakes and sometimes the opposition get a rub of the green and that sounds a little illogical to say that those those two factors mean that that you lose a two-legged semi-final but that's what happens in football we've just been talking about it some things you can't explain so you can't go pillory in manchester city or slaughtering them because they got beaten because the way the games went they should have won but the football gods didn't give them it yeah but you get you got to see the game out though stevie right you're in full control yes you can you can they think they'd won after that goal from marriage then no no no i don't think i don't think that manchester city at that point was overlooking real madrid what i think was concerning from manchester city's perspective is the lack of understanding of the moment is that okay what is real madrid going to do they haven't been able to get a shot on target eventually they're just going to commit numbers forward eventually they're just going to lump balls into the box trying to get in the end of the second balls and rebound something so that they manufacture a chance for nothing and that's how the first goal comes and and yet what you find from manchester city today defensively in those moments is things that we have seen already this season from the same pair of center back so that so it's individuals not the team right and you know you could you could pull out individuals that i've just done so it's not the team you know you can't within a team there will be games and days where individuals make mistakes sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you don't and unfortunately this was a huge day to have individuals making mistakes but the point the point to me is so you you got to see out today right let's focus on that we got you got to see it out you cannot be surprised that real madrid's course and santiago bernabeu is jumping and the energy and everything is happening the momentum is not with you and and you're not able to adjust to it that you're not able to get out from that that pattern of what we're just going to play out of things we're going to make it pretty we're going to keep possession of the ball no no see sometimes all of that in theory is great how about you just put it over there in the 20th row and kill the game off how about you don't you don't have to keep perfect possession of the ball how about you put some numbers behind the ball and you get tough defensively and clear out a header and your center backs come and clean somebody out in order to clear out a header sometimes you got to get ugly to get through and manchester city haven't proven in this competition at the very least that they can get ugly when it's when it's their turn to do so that in moments in which you just have to get through the game see the end of the game out you haven't been able to do it the only reason the only way that they were able to do it against atletico madridis because atletico made got on their own way but even in that game there were moments in which in which manchester city were nervous against a team that did not have any sort of resources going forward and hadn't proven that they could score a goal so to me you got to see it out today and you also have to look back to the first lake and see the things that you left on the table there as well okay gab hold that thought because native manure is actually joining us now hello nadem we'd like to get your reaction first of all to what you saw tonight um well the two sides to this is obviously the side of me as a founder you know i'm just i'm on a bit of a downer to be honest but from the sort of analytical side of it you know i agree with certain elements of what the guys are saying there because when city went wandel up you're almost expecting them to be able to manage the situation and i think when greece had a chance in the 88th minute you're thinking well it doesn't really matter because they're in control and so on and so forth but the reality of the situation is like real madrid it can get so well motivated by that clock especially in that stadium the time's ticking they'll throw bodies forward you know for as good as they play at times they'll throw bodies in the box they'll put good quality in there they'll try and stick their head on everything and it is like a good check as a defender and as a team in there can you just try can you win a header can you clear the ball but i don't know it was a shame because that second half for me was very disappointing from the city standpoint and then the moment extra time started and it was that that cheap house giveaway by diaz the last thing you needed was real madrid being in control of the game at home because that 30 minutes there like how long was the ball in play for you know they can manage the situation manage the moment and it was for me such a shame for them because you know they've worked very hard to be in this position but it's just a little individual errors at certain points that can make a big difference and when you look at the context of those two goals there's 60 seconds between the two of them like anyone who watches like real madrid they know the game is not over until that final whistle goes they will throw everything at you the crowd believe the players believe so you have to accept that this is what you're going to be faced with so for them to concede that first one and then like literally a minute later i could see that second and don't get me wrong i don't think rodrigo is meant to sort of head it after somebody's flicked it but still they throw themselves in the box they put the bodies there and it just wasn't just wasn't to be for city today you know things still think they're very good side but i think some of the individuals in terms of how they play today i don't think they're anywhere near their best and i think when you play at these sorts of clubs you get these big moments and if you're not at your best the sort of the downside of not working out is that you're losing a semi-final of the champions league you're losing the final the champions league you know you might lose elite sites or lose a leak up and stuff like this you can't hype there's no hiding place in the middle of the field at santiago bernabeu as there's like three minutes left to go so you know from as i say from a fan standpoint i'm disappointed but the reality is you know real madrid they did what they do this is roma did in the champions league this is real madrid this season they never give up they find a way they ride their luck whenever they need to even casamiro not getting booked but for city i can't say they deserve to get to the final because the fact of the matter is like they didn't manage the moment and that's exactly what they needed to do going out in the second half real madrid were 45 minutes away from being eliminated from the competition and you could you were not to play into their hands but unfortunately as time passed they ended up doing so and then come extra time as soon as benzema scored that penalty i just couldn't see city scoring and that's just the inevitability of this situation unfortunately so who wasn't at their best for city tonight made them um i thought overall the front three were very quiet i thought gabriel zeus was really quiet thought folding was quiet i thought myers was really quiet at times really sloppy kevin de bruyne wasn't very good like even when he came off the field i was thinking all that still feels weird but then you look back and you think well what did he do in the game and then very quickly gunduan gets involved with zinchenko and they create the the goal for uh for mahrez so you know it just weren't they weren't the best i thought i thought bernardo silva was pretty good to be honest and rodri looked a bit tired towards the end but it's just those just like the front three has to say they've done so well they've done so well recently but they just weren't really there today and i think that affected de bruyne as well and city as an attacking threat i thought they were nowhere near as good as say they have been in recent games if i think what they needed really was more people to be trying to stretch the game in behind but they didn't do that today and i think as a match up that played into real madrid's hands and you know to scoot forward towards the final i think you can never count real madrid out but like level four the most front foot like high energy team that probably exist in europe at this moment in time and i think that's the way to break down the real madrid side because city weren't really doing that today and i think ultimately they paid the price well thank you very much for watching espn on youtube for more sports highlights and analysis be sure to download the espn app and for live streaming premium content and let's not forget as well espn fc seven days a week subscribe to espn plus

Channel: ESPN FC

Views: 703,736

Keywords: Real Madrid vs. Man City, Real Madrid, Real Madrid vs. Manchester City, Karim Benzema, Rodrygo, Rodrygo Real Madrid, Champions League, Champions League Final, Carlo Ancelotti, ESPN FC Real Madrid, ESPN FC Champions League, Real Madrid vs Manchester City full reaction, Real Madrid vs Man City full reaction, champions league analysis, Soccer on ESPN, #UCL, Champions League final, Real Madrid vs Liverpool, Real Madrid CF, Real Madrid Highlights, Pep Guardiola

Id: bLtF7Jpra0U

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Wed May 04 2022