Pep Guardiola felt Manchester City‘s performance against Real Madrid was not reflected by their 3-0 defeat at the Santiago Bernabeu in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.
City went into the tie as favourites against a Madrid side missing the injured Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham.
Los Blancos approached Wednesday’s fixture on a shaky run of home form. Madrid had lost two of their previous three home matches, those defeats coming against Osasuna and Getafe.
Yet Guardiola’s men were blown away by a first-half hat-trick from Madrid captain Federico Valverde, who scored three times in 22 minutes to give Alvaro Arbeloa’s side complete command ahead of Tuesday’s return leg at the Etihad Stadium.
It could have been even worse for City, but Vinicius Junior saw a poor second-half penalty saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma, with that huge missed opportunity giving the Premier League side at least a glimmer of hope of a turnaround next Tuesday at the Etihad Stadium.
“I had the feeling that, yeah, it was better than the result said, but the result is here. We have one week and in Etihad we will see,” Guardiola told TNT Sports.
First leg fruitless for Manchester City
Guardiola’s team selection was quickly called into question as the game unravelled for City.
He made seven changes from the side that came from behind to beat Newcastle United 3-1 in the FA Cup.
Yet the decision to go with an extremely attacking line-up, with Savinho retaining his place in the XI as he Antoine Semenyo and Jeremy Doku operated behind Erling Haaland, backfired spectacularly.
City were superior in the early stages, but any semblance of control dissipated after Thibaut Courtois’ superb long ball caught out Nico O’Reilly, allowing Valverde to surge down the right and round Donnarumma for a 20th-minute opener.
“They [Real Madrid] didn’t create much [after the first goal], and the second time they arrived, second goal. Arrived a third time, third goal. It’s not easy,” Guardiola added.
“So that and the quality they have, they defend so compact, so solidarity, eight players, 11 players there defending. So the transitions always is there. And of course, Jeremy tried really, really well and every time you arrive, we have players there, but unfortunately we couldn’t do it.”
The level of space in the City midfield facilitated Madrid’s continued success in transition, and Guardiola’s men created extremely little for a side with so many attacking players on the pitch.
Asked about the frustration of failing to score given his team selection, Guardiola replied: “That’s why we did it, so I think that, for the first leg try to score a goal, to have the feeling that we want to do it, not just defend, defend.
“Look at the penalty, it’s a transition as well, so many times I play against them, [they] always do it, we try to control it with the ball, but at the end we could not do it.”
City will now attempt to pull off a famous comeback against the 15-time European champions, with the return leg coming just three days after a key Premier League game at West Ham.
“Now is recover mentally a little bit, the physicality, and go to West Ham in London – it will be tough – for the Premier League, still we are there,” said Guardiola.
“And after, yeah, we’ll see, with our people – I’m pretty sure they will come [to the Etihad Stadium], and in football you never know if we’re going to find something, or we’re going to read what they have to do, and we’ll try.”
