Match date: 7 August 2020

A great match for the restart of the Champions League with Manchester City coming into the second leg of the round of 16 tie with a 2-1 lead on aggregate. In the first leg, Real Madrid were 1-0 up from 60th minute to the 78th when Gabriel Jesus got City’s first away goal. Five minutes later, De Bruyne put them 2-1 up on the night and gave them their second crucial away goal.

Coming into tonight’s match, Real Madrid have won La Liga and Manchester City came in a distant second place in the Premier League. Both Guardiola and Zidane made a surprising selection in their front three with Guardiola starting Phil Foden in the middle of this front three and Zidane electing to start Rodrygo on the right side of his three.

Two Different Presses – Implications

A huge part of the game was the pressing schemes that both teams took up. City made success in pressing when Real Madrid were looking to build out of the back earlier on; you have to look no further than the first goal to see how quick City were to take advantage of the disconnection between Varane, Courtois, and Militão and the rest of the team to see the success in City’s pressing. Prior Sterling’s goal, the number of square passes that Real Madrid played across the back as Foden (again playing in the centre forward position) tried to force them to stay to one side is far too high. The Real Madrid midfield had huge problems throughout the game, but the initial problems stemmed from City suffocating the space effectively. Below you can see Real Madrid’s passes prior to the first goal and the lack of penetration.

The more interesting of the two was Zidane’s decision to press in closer to a 4-4-2 with Toni Kroos partnering Benzema in closing down City’s centre backs. This, however, caused many more issues for Real Madrid than City. Kroos is not the most mobile player, so having him press and then look to fall back into midfield is troublesome unless the two midfielder behind him are dynamic and able to deal with a numbers down situation, but they were not and with City playing something more of a double pivot with Rodri and Gündoğan behind De Bruyne, it meant that the Belgian saw a huge amount of space in behind Real’s midfield.

With Kroos’ pressing, ineffective or otherwise, allowing City to have a 3v2 in centre midfield, it became even harder for Real Madrid to deal with it as Foden played in the middle of the front three for City. The young Englishman played the role how you would expect an attacking midfielder to play it, by dropping into midfield. This of course caused more issues for Real Madrid in dealing with City’s midfield, but it also meant that one of Varane or Militão were tracking Foden’s movement into midfield. This essentially left Jesus and Sterling in 1v1 situations with Carvajal and Mendy, respectively, and you could see Ederson looking for those balls forward. In fact, Ederson’s passes out to Jesus were his most common pass.

Jesus was extremely successful in the air, winning six of his eight aerial duals and this, combined with Modric and Casemiro pushing higher to support Benzema and Kroos’ press, meant that Manchester City were able to win knockdowns much easier.

When City pressed, it was when Real were deep in their penalty area and Varane, Militão, and Courtois were on the ball. Here, Jesus and Sterling would close down their respective centre back when they were on the ball and would use their cover shadow to take away the pass out to the full back. Sterling’s opening goal demonstrated this very well as both Jesus and Sterling allow their centre back to get on the ball, adjust their body shape to force the ball back to Courtois. On this occasion, Varane wasn’t able to play back to Courtois because Sterling had followed Militão’s previous pass back into the goalkeeper. Another good example of this was later in the half when Militão was being closed down by Sterling, try to play a reverse pass out to Mendy, only for Sterling to intercept, have a tussle with Militão, and then get called for a foul.

City didn’t look to press high at all opportunities, however, as they were more than content to sit in a mid-block and just deny passes into Modric and Kroos from deep and forced the ball into wide areas. This allowed so much of the game to be played in front of Manchester City and Real Madrid were unsuccessful trying to hit the ball behind a high City back four. The only time Real Madrid seemed to get any good opportunities going forward was when Benzema drifted away from the centre forward position to pick up space slightly deeper. You don’t have to look much further than his goal where he was able to pick up the ball, turn and combine with Rodrygo, before getting on the end of the Brasilian’s cross to bring Real Madrid level on the night. In the clip below, you can see Modric, Kroos, and Casemiro all getting on the ball, but notably the latter two had to move wide to do so and then Modric quickly switched play, City’s high line, and Benzema’s movement.

City’s Dynamic Midfield v Real Madrid’s Stale Midfield

With that huge amount of space in midfield for De Bruyne to operate in, it was predictable that the Belgian would be hugely influential throughout the game. The amount of times he was able to pick the ball up and dribble at Varane and Militão (much like Iniesta used to do: dribbling at the opposition centre backs), whether from second balls or by just positioning himself between the lines, meant that Real Madrid were always going to struggle in containing his ability to create chances.

It wasn’t only De Bruyne’s initial positioning that allowed him to cause Real Madrid issues, but his dynamic movement with and without the ball. When Foden was dropping into midfield and was being tracked by Militão and Varane, it was De Bruyne that made runs into the vacated space. When Jesus or Sterling dropped a little deeper to pick up the ball or came central, it was De Bruyne that went into the wide areas. His driving runs forward freed Jesus, Sterling, and Foden up and aided in the Belgian creating the most chances in the game. This movement from deep wasn’t something that Real Madrid could deal with, not only with De Bruyne, but with Walker breaking the lines on the dribble.

Once City were able to get into the attacking third of the field, they were comfortable and you then saw Gündoğan join in the attack which was highlighted by a notable opportunity that he had to shoot in the second half only to pass the ball onto Sterling, who was foiled by Courtois coming off his line as quick as he did. This freedom of movement of the likes of Gündoğan and the front three was down to Cancelo and more so Walker as they sat deep and narrow near Rodri to effectively eliminate Real Madrid’s chances to counter.

While City showed good structure and were exploiting space with their movement behind the Real midfield, Kroos, Modric, and Casemiro were static and sloppy in their possession, in particular Casemiro. As mentioned, City did not want Kroos or Modric on the ball and by sitting in a mid-block with five across midfield, it meant that Casemiro was the one to bring the ball forward. All three were struggled at different times to move the ball forward, but Casemiro in particular played some passes that were poor, including one that Gündoğan should have taken better advantage of soon after Sterling’s goal. Usually press resistant, Gündoğan later easily dispossessed Casemiro to launch another counter.

Lack of Changes

While the onus was on Zidane to come up with changes, it was Guardiola that made the first noticeable change with Foden moving to the right, Jesus through the middle, and Sterling on the left. Guardiola mentioned after the game that he wanted his wingers wider in the second half, but this seemed more like a move with the Catalan knowing he was going to bring on Bernardo Silva on more than anything else. Zidane’s first change was a positive one with Asensio coming on for Rodrygo. The Brasilian winger showed glimpses, but aside from his cross for Benzema’s goal, he didn’t really take of playing an unnatural left back. Once Asensio came on, he started to drift inside a lot more and tried to float behind Rodri and Gündoğan. Even just his movements from outside inside rather than Rodrygo’s wide play gave Benzema more support; it wasn’t long after his introduction that he made a move inside and Kroos found him with a long ball which Asensio knocked down to Benzema.

Zidane’s next moves, however, likely came too late. Valverde, Jovic, and Vasquez came on for Hazard, Modric, and Carvajal with Real Madrid moving to a 3-5-2, with Casemiro dropping between Varane and Militão, Vasquez and Mendy playing as wingbacks, Asensio in front of Kroos and Valverde, and Jovic partnering Benzema up top. At this point, however, City were able to kill the game off relatively easily with the likes of De Bruyne still finding plenty of space.

Looking Forward

Manchester City progress with on a 4-2 aggregate score and face Lyon in the next round. Of course City have to be considered one of the favourites in the competition, but it will be interesting to see how Guardiola approaches the tie as he typically has issues in one of the legs of the knockout ties, sometimes playing too conservatively away from home, and with the reformatted, one game knockout for the quarter and semifinals, he will have to be certain about his selections.