Real Madrid 1 Man City 2
Is this the end for Xabi Alonso? A lot of the talk in Spain before the game was that if Real Madrid didn’t get a positive result against City that it would be the end for Xabi Alonso and he would be sacked by Real Madrid. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see whether Florentino Perez pulls the trigger on Alonso’s time at Madrid with his side looking poor yet again. I do have sympathy for Alonso in that he’s missing so many players that would ordinarily start for his team such as Mbappe, Militao, Carvajal, Alexander-Arnold, Camavinga,Huijsen, Mendy and Alaba. Most of those players probably would have started in this game or at least made more of an impact off the bench so you can see why Real Madrid’s level has dropped in the last month or so with the amount of absences in the squad.
Has Pep found his best defence? Cities defence this season has been the main reason why many believe that they can’t challenge Arsenal for the title this season but I think Pep has found his best combination in the backline, the pairing of Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol flanked by Nico O’Reilly and Matheus Nunes with Nico Gonzalez in front gives City the defensive structure that has been lacking so far this season when those players aren’t playing. In the second half City were happy to sit back on their lead knowing that Real Madrid weren’t going to open them up and saw out the win with relative comfort. It will be interesting to see how often Pep changes this backline knowing how strong it is and the drop off in quality when he takes the likes of Gvardiol and O’Reilly off.
VAR finally does some good in a big game. As we saw yesterday in the Liverpool match, VAR in Europe can be a disaster often re-refereeing matches when it shouldn’t and often coming to the wrong decision but it was actually used properly in this game awarding City a penalty for Rudiger’s prolonged hold of Erling Haaland in the penalty area. To be honest, I was surprised the referee on the pitch didn’t award the penalty as it was fairly obvious that Rudiger had got the wrong side of Haaland and panicked in bringing him to the floor, in fairness it didn’t take the ref too long to then award the penalty when he went to the screen. These moments are exactly what VAR is for and I’m glad to see it being used properly after last night.
Rodrygo looked back to his best. I thought the real stand-out player in this game was Rodrygo and even though he was on the losing side it was good to see him back to his best after not scoring in 31 matches. He took his goal brilliantly finishing low past Donnarumma after Bellingham sent him through and it looked like the Rodrygo of old at times with the close-control, running in behind and link-up play with Vinicius Junior that reminded me of when Madrid won the Champions League in 2024. I still think that he may have to leave Madrid to fulfil his full potential as I think he’ll always be in the shadow of Mbappe and Vini when he could easily be a star in almost every other team in the world, hopefully for Rodrygo he can now kick on and get back to his best form for Madrid.
What on Earth has happened to Vinicius Junior? As I was watching this game I couldn’t help but think about how badly Vini has fallen off over the last 12 months, in the past on a Champions League night you could be sure that he’d turn up and sometimes drag his team over the line with an often electric performance, tonight with no Mbappe and up against Matheus Nunes who isn’t really a right-back I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get back in form and announce yourself to the world again but it just didn’t happen. I thought Vini was awful tonight losing the ball over and over again and he looks bereft of the confidence that nearly took him to the Ballon d’Or in 2024. There’s been talk of him leaving Madrid with their apparently being a rift between him and Alonso and you wonder if we will see the best of Vini in a Madrid shirt again?