When Eduardo Camavinga picked up the ball at the start of the move that shifted this game and shaped the tie, setting up what promises to be a superb second leg next week, 36 minutes had gone and Manchester City, the team who had won 16 games in a row, were already over 3o0 passes. They had 72% of possession and 100% of the shots, 6 to 0. Thibaut Courtois had intervened four times, the best save from Rodrigo Hernández, taking his Champions League count to 26 from the last 26 shots he has faced. And the Frenchman was still way, way back in his own half, boxed in by the area. But it didn’t matter.
A midfielder playing at full-back, suddenly the Frenchman was flying, the noise rose with every stride, as if they knew. It’s not that it was a chance, not really, only everything is a chance here, and as Camavinga reached the other end, from one area to the next, he found Vinícius Júnior 20 yards out. This wasn’t really a chance either, but the Brazilian’s shot screeched through the air into the net leaving him standing in the corner, hammering at his chest, that badge, this place going wild. Remember us?
This was another demonstration that Real Madrid do many things so well, and one of them is wait. Somewhere inside of this, the biggest club of all, is a humility to go with the superiority, a confidence that their chance will arrive but an acceptance that the other team plays too; that at times they may even play better. And that when they do, that is not a reason to collapse, still less to lie down and die, but to cling on, to survive until you can slip in the knife. For there will always be a moment and then you must take it.
Here, as so often, they did. The difference to last year was that so did City. By the end of this draw, secured by two stunning shots at the north end, they were both still standing, ready to do it all over again. Pep Guardiola may feel that his team have a slight advantage after City got a second‑half equaliser but he knows it’s not done, not least because Madrid are seemingly never done, something he has repeatedly learned the hard way. Which is why this may even feel like a breakthrough, a turning of the tables. Luka Modric, though, insisted: “We go there with faith.”
For the first half hour here, it had been tested yet again but they have been here before, after all. “We were patient,” he said. It may feel an unlikely one but it is a key word.
Along with the luck, the magic, the destiny, the divine intervention, that carried Madrid to the most extraordinary Champions League there has ever been last season, there was also patience – an awareness that being the best isn’t always enough and sometimes isn’t even necessary. Not all game, anyway. As Rodri had put it, City had been the better team for 120 minutes last year and lost it all in five. The former Barcelona manager, Ernesto Valverde, had said it even better: the moment when you think you’re closest to beating Madrid is the moment when you’re closest to losing to them.
City did not lose here, and will rightly consider that progress, probably even an advantage to take to the second leg, not least because it is at home this time. Yet they also saw again that this is a team you never control entirely even when you appear to have them under control, and the worst thing you can do is think you have. When you have the advantage you must drive it home again and again and again. And then you must drive it home some more.
Instead, as City dominated the opening here, seemingly so superior, you could imagine Madrid thinking: Is that all you got? It was all a bit bloodless and it was not unexpected: “There will be times we have to run after the ball,” Toni Kroos had said, and so it proved. Carlo Ancelotti said: “They had more possession in those first thirty minutes but we weren’t worried about that because we were well positioned. We were waiting for the right moment for the transition.”
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On 36 minutes, there it was: a slick one-two with Modric and Camavinga was running free, a familiar fear about to return, a roar about to take this place. An inevitability, even. Madrid had reached half-time with a single shot, 0.03 xG and the lead.
That is not to say they were satisfied, but it was a start, the goal they wanted. “The manager told us at half-time that we needed to have more of the ball,” Modric admitted.
Given something to build on, they set about trying to do just that. Karim Benzema shot just over, Vinícius dashed into the area, the threat palpable, and Rodrygo put the ball beyond the bar. Toni Kroos was then blocked, Vinícius shot into the stands, and Benzema had a go. Vinícius then tied up Kyle Walker. “How could I not love you when you won the European Cup over and over again?” the Bernabéu sang as the momentum built. Madrid could smell blood, or so it seemed. We’ve got you now.
They didn’t have. That was when Kevin De Bruyne struck: Madrid have no monopoly on moments, Blue Moon the song now, a lesson learnt perhaps. A new experience lived, certainly, because now it was their turn, because Madrid came back at City who resisted and occasionally ran. Federico Valverde escaped Manuel Akanji, Ederson saved Benzema’s header, and there was even a Lambretta from Vinícius. In the 90th minute Ederson made a superb save from Aurélien Tchouaméni, then when he leapt to catch Nacho’s deflected shot, on 92.51 he fell to the floor and clung to the ball, happy. They had survived, and sometimes, as Madrid have shown, that is everything.
