Real Madrid and Manchester City meet again in the Champions League knockout stages
Real Madrid destroyed Manchester City in the round of 16 of the Champions League. The teams played each other in the first leg on March 11th and Madrid destroyed Man City 3-0 with Federico Valverde scoring a hat-trick. The team played again in the second leg March 17, with Madrid winning 2-1 and Vinícius Júnior. scoring a brace.
Real Madrid and Manchester City have a history of facing each other in the Champions League knockout rounds over the last six years. Madrid has won four out of the last six Champions League knockout stage matches versus City.
Madrid were anticipated by many to lose this game because of all the injuries they had. In the first leg at the Bernabeu they had seven injured players, including star players like Kylian Mbappé, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo Silva de Goes. Luke Clemow ‘27 said, “I thought that Manchester City was going to win because of the injuries Madrid had, such as their star player Mbappe. I knew that it could have gone either way, as both of these teams are very good but I expected City’s defense to be better and I also expected Madrid’s defense to be worse. It ended up being the other way around, costing City the game and moving Madrid into the next round.”
In the first leg, Madrid scored all three goals in the first half and definitely looked like the better team. Thibaut Courtois had an amazing two games with an assist in the first leg to Valverde, but sadly, he got injured in the second leg. The hat-trick Valverde scored was absolutely insane and he equally played amazingly defensively. Levi Grossman ‘27 said, “He carried his team and helped them get a really good result.” Valverde helped Trent Alexander Arnold defend Jeremy Doku and as a result, he had to go up and down the field nonstop. City looked like they didn’t have any energy in the second half of the first leg. If Vini didn’t miss a penalty, the outcome for City would have been way worse.
The second leg was in Manchester, and it started off very well for City; they had many chances and looked like they were going to score in the first ten minutes. However, Vini stopped their momentum by forcing a penalty and a red card to Bernardo Silva in the 20th minute, which was huge. Vini ended up scoring the penalty and not only did he score but Silva got the red card which was huge as he is an important piece in City’s attack. After some early promise, City started to play sloppily but Haaland ended up scoring a scrappy goal in the 44th minute and City never got momentum back. After Haaland’s goal, the game wasn’t too eventful until Vini scored again in the 90th minute.
