Erling Haaland, the goal-monster for Manchester City, was held in check for once, but when his team needed a moment of magic, the old dependable Kevin De Bruyne conjured it up against Real Madrid in the enthralling first leg of the Champions League semi-final on Tuesday.
The 31-year-old De Bruyne, along with the rest of City’s high-quality collection of internationals, has been overshadowed by Haaland’s record-shredding debut season in England. Haaland has been the top scorer in the Premier League.
The Norwegian juggernaut Haaland has scored 51 goals across all competitions, but he found Antonio Rudiger and David Alaba of Real Madrid to be a bit less accommodating than the center backs of the Premier League that he has tormented relentlessly all season.
Although he was denied a goal by Alaba’s superb covering block, De Bruyne scored for City to ensure that they would leave the Bernabeu with a 1-1 draw. He was kept relatively quiet during the match.
De Bruyne demonstrated once more why he is so vital to City in their pursuit of eventually winning the Champions League and maybe a triple by scoring a goal when Real Madrid appeared to be in control of the game and was threatening to add to the lead handed to them by a wonder goal scored by Vinicius Jr.
His strike from beyond the penalty area was a thing of beauty; the ball rose no more than a foot off the ground before rocketing into the air in Madrid like a missile and beating Thibaut Courtois.
“Kevin is a significant contributor to our team. Rodri, a midfielder for City, commented on the Belgian talisman who has been an integral part of four Premier League championship teams and said, “Always he has been great, and he helped us in the moment we most needed it.” The Belgian talisman has been a major component of teams that have won the Premier League.
“We were suffering a bit because they were keeping the ball, and with the goal, he gave us the confidence to continue pushing.”
When Kevin de Bruyne scored his 14th goal in the Champions League for Manchester City, he became the first player in the history of the Champions League to score in two different knockout-round away games against Real Madrid.
It also swayed the match in favor of Pep Guardiola’s team, who will be a small favorite to win the second leg, which will take place the following Wednesday at the Etihad Stadium, where they are undefeated in the tournament for the past five years.
They will, however, need to be mindful of a Real team that will also take a significant amount of comfort from the first leg as they try to win the trophy for a record-extending 15th time. Real will take a great amount of comfort from the first leg.
Despite giving City the majority of control of the ball, particularly in the first half, they played with a calm demeanor, never showed signs of fear, and appeared to be quite effective on the counterattack.
In addition, the defending champions were successful in cutting off the supply to Haaland, and they had the greatest player on the field on Tuesday in the form of the Brazilian livewire Vinicius Jr. It is easy to see why Carlo Ancelotti, the experienced manager, did not appear too bothered by his team’s failure to win the first game.
“We have to play like this again next week,” the Italian, who has won the championship four times, twice with Real and twice with AC Milan, remarked. Because our game plan worked so well, we never felt threatened even when they had possession of the ball. After that, the second half was quite different from the first. All that is left for us are pleasant feelings.”
Even while he was pleased with what he observed, Guardiola acknowledged that some adjustments could be necessary.
It’s almost like we’re in the playoffs now. “We can defend better in some departments, and maybe we can attack a little bit differently,” he added. “We have a lot of room for improvement.” Because Alaba and Rudiger were located so near to Erling, there were a relatively limited number of available spots. Perhaps there are a few things that we can tinker with.