Vinicius' double and Foden's persistence: how Real Madrid and Manchester City won their first Champions League quarter-finals

No defenders - no problem

Less than a day before the start of the match in Madrid, Real Madrid confirmed infection with the coronavirus of Rafael Varan.

This left the champions of Spain without a bunch of main central defenders, as captain Sergio Ramos also missed the match due to injury.

Therefore, the head coach of the club Zinedine Zidane had to hastily come up with ways to replace the veterans.

There was no need to talk about high-quality rotation: despite the external brilliance, the depth of Real Madrid's line-up in the defensive line is minimal.

And so the pair of Nacho was Eder Militao.

However, Liverpool just recently experienced a similar crisis after nearly synchronous, both in complexity and severity of injuries of Virgil van Dyck, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip.

However, after three matches to zero over the last month, I believed in my own invulnerability, as well as mutual understanding within the duo of Ozan Kabak and Nathaniel Phillips - when the bunch came out at the start, it certainly played to zero.

For this he paid.

Even before the break, the Spaniards twice upset Alison Becker, revealing the most vulnerable zone in the opponent's defense.

The pass from the depth of field performed by Toni Kroos in the 27th minute found a gap between the guests' centerbacks and received a filigree treatment from Vinicius - the Brazilian exemplarily created and implemented a one-on-one exit with the goalkeeper.

And after nine revolutions of the second hand, the diagonal from the German conductor of Real Madrid caught Trent Alexander-Arnold by surprise.

The hosts deliberately overloaded his flank throughout the entire time - and thus exhausted the young man.

Apparently, physically sagging a little, Arnold began to lose his position more and more often before the break.

And after the next throw Kroos “fired”, hurrying to interrupt the flight of the ball with his head.

Instead of a discount on Alison, the transfer turned out to be exactly on the boot of Marco Asensio.

The mistake drew a line under the nightmarish starting segment for Arnold: in 45 minutes he managed to lose the ball 13 times.

Whereas his "transfer" allowed the hosts midfielder to excel in the fourth meeting in a row in all tournaments.

“Liverpool” would in response to trump their own attack - yes to show that high pressure with the prompt delivery of the ball to someone else's penalty area during the transition phase equalizes the scales.

But instead, the British, who entered the selection much lower than usual, showed the world only an impressive amount of running work done by each of the lines.

All the rest of the severity of the first half resulted in 0.0 goals scored in terms of expected goals.

Neither the castling of Roberto Firmino on Diogo Jota in the starting lineup, nor the exchange of Tiago Alcantara for Nabi Keita gave the offensive dynamism.

Klopp recognized the last move as erroneous even before the break: immediately after the goal of Asensio, the Guinean lost his place on the field to the Brazilian defensive player.

But the specialist left the Portuguese - and he immediately after the break cheered up the Liverpudlians.

Having betrayed the coaching installations, he left the flank, where the entire first half toiled, to the center and after Wijnaldum pulled the ball across half the field, made a penetrating pass to Mohamed Salah.

The Egyptian hit at close range on the possessions of Thibaut Courtois, having no room for error.

And he did everything so flawlessly that even VAR could not find fault - although the owners insisted on an offside position with the striker.

All of Real's steam in these disputes threatened to blow the whistle and open the way for Liverpool to a draw.

But Alison prevented the miraculous rescue of the champion of England.

In the 65th minute, the Brazilian did not help the team after another inconsistency in the actions of the central defenders, allowing Vinicius to issue a double.

An accurate strike was preceded by a whole chain of minor positional flaws.

But such blots followed Liverpool earlier in the season.

Adrian and Kelleher cleaned them up unstably.

But Alison was famous for his ability to help out.

In Madrid, the iron goalkeeper also let down, which is why the position of the British looks unenviable before the return match.

However, at the weekend, "Real" is waiting for el clasico.

And the champion of Spain after the energy-consuming duel with Barcelona will appear definitely emasculated.

This is the chance of Liverpool, who, under Klopp, taught the public that there are no desperate situations.

Although the Lersisides will have a hard time on April 10 - they will be tested by Aston Villa in the domestic championship.

Holland is lost, Foden is found

Last week, Manchester City announced their parting with Sergio Aguero at the end of the season.

The striker's high salary, age, injuries and the constant desire of Pep Guardiola to improve the squad led to the decision of the management to let the Argentine go to free bread.

Instead, the “townspeople” decided to lure Erling Holland, the top scorer of the current Champions League, to their camp.

And although the head coach at the press conference before the visit of the Norwegian together with Borussia to the Etihad rejected such intentions, everyone understood that this was exclusively polite.

After all, the sniper revealed in Dortmund is not just monstrously good - it fits perfectly into Guardiola's system.

And if Erling had shown the goods in England, he would have certainly convinced Sheikh Mansur, who owns City, to go for another undermining of the transfer market.

However, Holland disappeared into the field on Tuesday night, focusing on playing alongside.

The teenager Ansgar Knauf, who was at the forefront of the attack, worked much more actively for him: four selections (most of all!) For the starting half favorably distinguished the hard worker against the general black and gold background.

Jude Bellingham looked just as impressive, even sending the ball into Ederson's net.

But the referee Ovidiu Hatsegan considered the selection by the Briton too aggressive action towards the goalkeeper and canceled the goal.

What caused indignation on the part of the author of the strike: as an Englishman who had gone through the harsh school of Birmingham and the Championship, he knew perfectly well what real contact football was.

The paradox, but with all the compliments that Borussia disrupted, it was the Germans who spent most of the match in a state of catch-up.

All because in the 19th minute Emre Can made a catastrophic mistake.

With an understanding of the defensive player's game and his experience of performances (including in the Premier League for Liverpool), it was impermissible to give the ball to de Bruyne in the center.

But the pruning happened - and led to a counteroffensive "4 on 6", in which the guests defended themselves in a childishly chaotic manner.

That, in turn, allowed Kevin de Bruyne in the fourth match in a row against Borussia to write down an effective action.

And also made the football player the most scoring Kevin in the history of the Champions League, leaving behind the namesake Kuranyi.

The relatively quick goal also changed the concept of City's game.

It was in the old days that Guardiola's teams flew forward to increase the advantage, opened up - and received goals in response on counterattacks.

Now the "townspeople" approached the preservation of the advantage as pragmatically as possible, switching to work as the second number.

They allowed the guests to control the ball a lot, move to the final third with a wide front, and combine.

But they weren't allowed to beat him dangerously.

After interceptions, they unclenched the spring of counterattacks through passes to the flank and rapid breakthroughs along the sidelines.

Had Phil Foden been a little luckier at the end during the second half, the match could have turned into a guide “How to destroy a top opponent with counterattacks”.

But the England midfielder refused to hit the goal and the textbooks.

Football could not forgive such extravagance.

And the diligence of Borussia demanded a reward.

It was fully received by Marco Royce in the 84th minute, after, together with Bellingham and Holland, he opened City's defense right in the center - boldly in concept and spectacular in execution.

The obvious maneuver in itself took the owners by surprise with its banality, but that was also wonderful.

With the onset of added time, memes about another failure of City in the Champions League quarterfinals began to fill the network exponentially and threatened to cover them with an avalanche.

But the stream of stinging pictures was stopped by Foden.

The midfielder, one of the top three youngest English goalscorers in this Champions League phase, reminded of Manchester's character.

Indeed, since the debut in the tournament in the 2011/12 season, it was the “townspeople” (along with “Real”) who scored the most goals in the 90th minute and later.

Foden's blow was the 17th of those and brought the hosts a victory.

Although he must say special thanks to de Bruyne for another soft diagonal into the penalty area and Gundogan, who caught the ball without offside.