Manchester City – Real Madrid: Madrid Mistakes Give City Comfortable Route To Quarter-Final (2-1)

The scoreline was ultimately decided by two mistakes from Raphaël Varane, which allowed Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus to get on the scoresheet either side of Karim Benzema’s equalizer for Real Madrid. Despite Madrid’s goal, City were always the better team in the match, able to press effectively against Madrid’s buildup, and in the second half establishing more control through their own ball possession.

Tactical match report and analysis by Josh Manley.

Manchester City came into this second leg with a 2-1 advantage from the fixture between these two teams in February. In that match, Pep Guardiola had used a 4-4-2 shape with two false nines to play against the aggressive individual defending styles of Real Madrid’s center-backs. City were very cautious in the match and went 1-0 down but recovered in the second half with the help of a substitute appearance from Raheem Sterling.

Since then, Madrid managed to put together a good run of form post-lockdown to secure the LaLiga title. City meanwhile strolled to a second place finish in the Premier League and missed out on the FA Cup, losing in the semi-finals to Arsenal.

Arguably the two main pieces of team news for . . .