Manchester City vs Real Madrid: My Tactical Takes Of The Game

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Yesterday we witnessed a yet another champions league firecracker of a game. Manchester City vs Real Madrid. The game played in the Etihad stadium ended with a score of 4-3 to Manchester City. The tie remains wide open. As the second leg is in the Santiago Bernabeu and Real Madrid are trailing by a goal, we are bound to expect another firecracker in a week. But for now, let us concentrate on how this game returned with such a score line.


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Real Madrid lined up a traditional 4-3-3 with these players. Courtois, Carvajal, Militao, Alaba, Mendy, Fede Valverde, Kroos, Modric, Rodrygo, Vinicius and Benzema.

While Manchester City also lined up in a 4-3-3 with, Ederson, Stones, Dias, Laporte, Zinchenko, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Mahrez, Foden and Jesus.

City made an electric start by scoring twice inside the first 15 minutes. Madrid did pull one back by Benzema but that was all in the first half. In the second half both teams scored twice each, and all the goals were outstanding and even the penalty was a calmly executed panenka. Manchester City played their wingbacks inverted. Meaning they would occupy the half spaces in the midfield. This allows their number 8s to push higher up and create problems in the attacking half spaces. While the City wingers tended to stay wide. This meant that while Madrid's wingers are busy tracking City's fullbacks, their fullbacks are also busy tracking the City wingers. This made an overload of 3v2 on the flanks in favor of Manchester City. This helped City score almost all of their goals. And Real had a very hard time to keep track of those City players. Which was evident in the game. While on the other side Real Madrid weren't at their best at all. Caught out by City's barrage they lost track multiple times. They would play a the traditional game of 4-3-3 with the pivot creating, and the number 8s advancing with the ball and supporting the attack. While the wingers tucked in the fullbacks pushed high up. This is actually a very good system but the problem is, yesterday the pivot was kroos. And he was isolated in the bottom half of the field. While the other two midfielders were pushing high up as their coach instructed. So Kroos was cut off and the supply wasn't coming for the attack. Later Modric went deep to help Kroos. While defending City stayed compact so Real had space in the wings especially on their right. But somehow they couldn't take advantage.

Both teams had a defensive shape of 4-4-2 with one midfielder pushing up with the striker and wingers staying low. To pressurize the opposition defense. But City were a step ahead here too. Their front 2 didn't press as much as Real but stayed near the midfield. Creating another 4v3 overload in their favor in the mid. Real were completely cut off from different places of the places. Their three goals are the example of it. One's a penalty, other's a solo brilliance by Vinicius, and the other was just, well, Karim Benzema is Midas now, anything he touches turns into goals.

In a week we resume at the Spanish capital of Madrid to settle this. Will Real Madrid finally run out of luck and individual brilliances ? Or will Pep Guardiola overthink again? Time will tell as usual.



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6 comments
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Were you writing a post during the session? xD

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Nah. I made that draft yesterday. But couldn’t manage time to publish 😂😅

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