Real Madrid – Manchester City: Kylian Mbappé Mangles Manchester City’s Dreams (3-1)

The last two winners of the Champions League would not have expected to end up in a playoff. But only one outfit could correct their course to chase the crowing glory of European football and that right belonged to the reigning champions, whose royal status stood out in this clash.

Tactical analysis and match report by Emmanuel Adeyemi-Abere.

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Two clubs with distinctly different strategies for success are now navigating the diversion of the playoff. This tie has seen the two teams in better shape but there are reasons to believe in a revival.

Real Madrid remain the place where stars shine brightest. Yet, this team has a workmanlike attitude with the resilience to resist the problems of their campaign. A wave of injuries has beset the back four while Carlo Ancelotti attempted to create a place for Kylian Mbappé in the offense. But their timing is impeccable. As the signature signing has settled in the Spanish capital, the reigning champions are right in the race for the LaLiga title and continue to pick up the right results when it matters the most. 

Manchester City will not win the Premier League for the fifth year in a row:  they are 16 points off the league leaders and have highlighted too many frailties to reach top spot in the new year. However, in his time of need, Pep Guardiola gained the backing of the board with four incomings in the winter window. As the manager pokes and plays about with his recruits in a midseason rebuild, there are signs of new life. Could he now devise a master plan to turn around this deficit at the Bernabéu?

Pep prepared in an ideal way for their toughest trip of 2025: a 4-0 rout of Newcastle United. Omar Marmoush made his mark with a hat-trick and started as one of the forwards. However, Erling Haaland had pain in his knee in the final minutes of this match and did not feature in the starting eleven. Nico González got the nod in the middle of the park, so John Stones sat next to Rúben Dias in the center of the defense, and Abdukodir Khusanov came in for Manuel Akanji as the right back.

Carlo could call on the services of Antonio Rüdiger as the partner to Raúl Asencio at the heart of the rearguard. Aurélien Tchouaméni took the place of Eduardo Camavinga in the double pivot with Dani Ceballos. Although Lucas Vázquez was a part of the squad, Federico Valverde held onto the role of the right back. At the other end of the field, the manager put faith in his four big attackers. Rodrygo, Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior, and Kylian Mbappé looked to finish off the duel in the final third.

City collapse catastrophically

Real Madrid had to wait till injury time to lead at the Etihad Stadium. But their breakthrough arrived within the first five minutes of this fixture. City committed a cardinal sin: their two lines of four sat on the center circle with no pressure on the ball. Asencio angled a pass over the defense, Dias stumbled under the flight of the ball, and Mbappé made the decisive contact, lifting an effort on the bounce over Ederson and into the back of the net. The aggregate advantage had doubled, and City were in crisis.

The entire sequence of Mbappe’s first goal from another angle
pic.twitter.com/pxj0cGqAWC

— Edwin(fan) (@EdwinRMFC) February 19, 2025

And it got worse. At the restart, Stones crumbled to the floor with an injury. Pep pulled him off, kept Khusanov on the right of the back four, and sent on Nathan Aké to join Dias as a central defender

Madrid maneuver out of pressure

City needed a classic pressure phase to switch the flow of this fixture. But the tie only threw up further problems. They set up in a 4-4-2 structure without the ball: Marmoush and Savinho stood as the two forwards in the formation while Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva flanked the double pivot.

Yet whatever lineup he uses, Pep cannot extract the energy from his players to take the ball from opponents. They could not compactly defend switches through the sixes, diagonal dribbles featured off both flanks and Madrid flooded the left channel as Mbappé, Bellingham, and Vinícius took turns to test Khusanov and Dias in the right channel. The second goal was a matter of time for the hosts.

27^th minute: buildup sequence from Real Madrid. Ferland Mendy receives the ball and Bellingham drifts out to the touchline. Foden angled the fullback inside, but he could change direction quickly enough to throw Foden towards Ceballos while Vinícius offered inside Gündogan. The forward dropped off the defensive line, passed back to Rüdiger, and two Madrid midfielders were available outside the block. On this occasion, it was Mbappé who tried to attack the space in the channel.

Ceballos split forward and ran out to the right touchline. Foden could not jump to Mendy in time, and as Ilkay Gündogan blocked the central lane, Tchouaméni tilted back to receive and switch to Rodrygo. The Brazilian fed Valverde, Bellingham was free between the lines, and Vinícius veered behind the defense. His cutback rolled to Rodrygo, who threaded the ball through Khusanov’s legs to Mbappé, and two touches later, with Joško Gvardiol sliding along the ground, the ball bulged in the net.

City counterpunched again and again

City were equally unlikely to dent their hosts with their work on the ball. Madrid defended in a 4-4-2 layout with Vinícius and Mbappé as the two forwards. High pressing has not been a typical strength for Ancelotti in the Spanish capital, but his men can be stubborn to break down if they sit and suffer in a lower block. For long stretches, they could control City’s ‘superiority’ on the possession tally last week as Pep proposed a narrow arrangement that lacked the tempo to open up their deeper block.

City started with a different blueprint. Both fullbacks advanced on the outside and Savinho moved inside Madrid’s block on the right while Foden and Gündogan bounced between the lines. In the 10th minute, the three players combined to pull Rüdiger out of the defense and Gündogan gunned into the space, but Marmoush did not connect with the run. That passage of play was the cleanest connection in the first half as sequences were slow, littered with errors, and offered opportunities to transition.

49^th minute: offensive transition from Real Madrid. González and Foden worked the ball through the center to release Savinho, but Tchouaméni recovered to tackle him. Ceballos came around on the double to pick up the ball and Gündogan flew ahead of Rodrygo, as one of the midfield screeners, to apply pressure. But Ceballos and Rodrygo fed passes around the midfielder to connect with Mbappé into his feet. The transition is delayed but Madrid break the counterpressure and circulate possession.

Bernardo moved to the right wing at the start of the second half, hugging the outside, and Savinho switched sides around Foden. It made little difference as Madrid continued to counter and pulled all the pieces together on the hour mark. Rodrygo rode challenges to push past the halfway line and as City shirts filtered into their shape, Mbappé received the ball on the edge of the penalty area. He shifted away from Foden into yards of space and rifled a left footed strike into the net for his hat-trick.

City keep a lid on the embarrassment

Foden fired a few efforts at Thibaut Courtois on the half turn but City never looked like a team that would get back into the game. The two teams were worlds apart in their level as Madrid were in their element. Valverde kept bombing forward on the right flank, and Bellingham was connecting with teammates on both sides of the field, while Mbappé and Vinícius continued to try and add to the lead.

A consolation goal would comfort the visitors a little at the end of injury time. Marmoush thrashed a free kick at the target, and it cannoned off the crossbar into the path of González, who scored his first goal for his new club. But once the referee blew his whistle for full time, there was no doubt about the deserved victors across the 180 minutes of football: Madrid moved forwards into the Round of 16.

Takeaways

For the third time in the last four years, Real Madrid have knocked out the English champions. They have faced stronger versions of City in the recent past, but this still goes down as one of their most dominant displays of the season. The offensive forces are firing, and Mbappé’s momentum is building up ahead of steam for the business end of the campaign. No one ever wants to go to war against the continental kings on this stage, but this performance puts a little more fear in the minds of their rivals.

There are no delusions of grandeur for Manchester City. The club is a world away from the standards set for the last five years, and even their signings in the winter window indicate that eyes are not solely on the prizes of the present. Pep has built machines to run like clockwork, but without the liveliness and running power to perform their patterns, the football has been soulless for long stretches of the season. Now, the team must focus on finishing in the top four ahead of the next campaign.

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