After Manchester City scored the first of their four goals at a raucous Etihad Stadium on Wednesday, Real Madrid were very clearly rattled. Vinicius Jr complained and gesticulated to manager Carlo Ancelotti, while Karim Benzema gathered the team in a huddle.
It was all ragged. Los Blancos, supposedly the semblance of calm in the Champions League, were showing the same signs of panic that a litany of Premier League teams that show up to City’s home ground do every week. And it only got worse from there. City would hit the Madrid net three more times before it was all done, the experienced Spanish side looking increasingly disparate with every goal.
For City, this was a proper arrival. The Cityzens, this nation-state-assisted unit, have flirted with Champions League glory for nearly 10 years now. They have come close on many occasions, of course, notably losing in the 2021 final after one of the great Pep Guardiola acts of psyching oneself out. With Inter set as their opponents in the decider, though, this looks more likely than any other to finally be their year.
For Madrid, though, this looked an awful lot like an end. Los Blancos will still be a major player in European football – clubs of this magnitude do not simply drop out of contention. But in Manchester, in this fashion, it looked like the last chapter of one of Europe’s great sides.
This mix of old and young was a near-identical XI to the one that beat Liverpool in the Champions League final in 2022. On Wednesday, the older members looked their age, while the juvenile group looked as inexperienced as their ages suggest. For players wearing any other shirt, being outclassed by Europe’s most terrifying team away from home is perhaps forgivable. But this is Real Madrid, a team that has won five of the last nine Champions Leagues. Semi-final appearances alone are disappointments.
This might be the last realistic chance of European glory for Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Karim Benzema and Dani Carvajal. All four are still excellent footballers, but showed on Wednesday that they cannot be counted on to win the biggest of games anymore. Poor showings are allowed in most cases, but you are not allowed to have those if you play for Real Madrid. And if you happen to do so, it better not be against Man City in the Champions League semi-final.
So, the changes will come. A manager might be sacked, and players will be moved on and brought in. Positions may be readjusted, tactics could even be tweaked. But how does this all come together, what moves can actually be made to revamp — not necessarily rebuild — a still-promising side?
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