Real Madrid 3-1 Manchester City: 3 things we learned from an extraordinary comeback win
Real Madrid’s veterans, including Ancelotti, stepped up
We all have given Dani Carvajal a lot of crap this season, and rightfully so. But when the stakes were high, when it mattered most, Dani Carvajal put in his best performance of the season against the best team he has faced this season.
Carvajal was great on both ends of the pitch, and that’s something that cannot be said for most of his season so far. He’s been on a decent run of form recently but this game was by far his best, in my opinion. He had so many great crosses into the box, particularly the one that took the game into extra time.
This guy has struggled a lot this season, perhaps he would’ve struggled some more if Guardiola had thought of playing Sterling against Carvajal, but such ifs or buts don’t matter anymore. Real Madrid are in the Champions League final, and Dani Carvajal had a huge part to play in it.
The other guy in the picture is Nacho Fernandez, another defender that has struggled a lot this season. Nacho was in the line-up because Alaba was injured, and I said it a couple of times in the build-up to this game that Nacho absolutely has to drop his best performance by far this season if Real are to win this game, and that’s exactly what he did.
He didn’t take any unnecessary gambles, didn’t leave space in the back and was always there to clean out the mess. Nacho had one excellent tackle towards the end of the game, and a lot of what Real Madrid did right defensively needs to be credited to Nacho.
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Now, Ancelotti got it right. We have to give him credit for it. Real Madrid, in all but one sequence (the one in which we conceded, ha), played a very good, structured game. This was one of the best pressing games from Real Madrid, and the most defensively sound as well. The team also created chances going forward, and overall, I can say for sure that Real Madrid fully deserved to win this game, and rightfully book their spot in the Champions League final. That felt good to write. It really did.