Manchester City had to be perfect, Pep Guardiola had said. Well, perfect lasted for less than four minutes in the Bernabeu on Wednesday night. Then Real Madrid scored with their first attack.
So perfect quickly turned to imperfect and then imperfect turned to mediocre and then mediocre turned to awful and awful turned to sorrow for the team City once were and which they are no longer.
Instead of perfection, the memories of this night in this palace of football that is a monument to the never-resting ambition of Real Madrid were of City being cut to pieces by the speed of thought and of action of their opponents.
They were of Kylian Mbappe running at the bewildered Abdukodir Khusanov, twisting his blood with a blur of stepovers and of Nico Gonzalez, resorting to clinging desperately to the shorts of Vinicius Jr to halt another lightning breakaway.
And at the end of it, Madrid, who were faster and stronger and hungrier and better in every aspect of the game had coasted to a 3-1 win and an aggregate 6-3 victory, Mbappe had scored a brilliant hat-trick, and City had failed to qualify for the knock-out stages of the Champions League for the first time in 12 years.
And brilliant though Madrid were, there was a sadness about seeing City so comprehensively and brutally outplayed. Sure, they were missing Erling Haaland through injury but they were a million miles from this Madrid team. They could not get close to them. Pep Guardiola’s side has fallen a long, long way very, very fast.
Kylian Mbappe scored a hat-trick for Real Madrid in their 3-1 victory over Manchester City
The Frenchman left Josko Gvardiol on the floor before slotting it into the net for his second
City were sent crashing out of the Champions League after suffering the huge aggregate loss
It is logical to think that this result will signal the end of an era for City. It should mark the acceleration of the break-up of the great side that won this competition in 2023 and has won four straight English top flight titles.
This beating, and the manner of it, suggested we may not see once-great players like Bernardo Silva, Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Jack Grealish and Ederson play for City again in the Champions League. The unforgiving glare of the Bernabeu shone upon them and showed they have grown old together. On this night, more than any other night, they looked like yesterday’s heroes.
What a stadium the Bernabeu is now. Now that its refurbishment is complete, its full steep-sided majesty has been restored and its proliferation of big screens makes watching a game here something close to an interactive experience for a new generation of supporters.
There was a brief time when the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium felt like the best football arena in Europe but the Bernabeu has regained that crown now and, unlike its rival in north London, it has a team to grace it.
That team opened the scoring here with practically their first venture into the City half. The goal was crushingly simple. It was beautifully executed by Madrid but it was yet another example of City’s newly-developed talent for pressing the self-destruct button.
City had built patiently in those opening minutes and prodded and probed to no effect. Then Madrid got the ball, Raul Asencio drifted a beautiful pass into the path of Mbappe, Ruben Dias was unable to cut it out, Ederson advanced into no-man’s land and Mbappe lobbed it over him into the net.
Things got worse for City immediately. John Stones contested a ball with Mbappe and when the two collided, the City defender appeared to jar his knee. It was obvious from the expressions and the gesticulations of those gathered around him that his evening was over. He was replaced by Nathan Ake.
City stopped the bleeding for half an hour but there was never a sense it was any more than that. Ederson punched clear a fierce drive from Mbappe but as poor Abdukodir Khusanov, making his first appearance in this stadium, was buried beneath a blizzard of Mbappe step-overs, it was obvious it was only a matter of time until Madrid increased their lead.
The Frenchman was swarmed by his Madrid teammates after scoring his second on the night
Pep Guardiola watched on as his team were second-best on a frantic evening in Madrid
Their second goal came 12 minutes before half time. It was started by a brilliant pass from Bellingham to Vinicius Jr and swiftly worked to Rodrygo. He slipped a pass through to Mbappe, who turned sweetly inside Josko Gvardiol and rifled his shot into the roof of the net.
If there was a solitary negative for Madrid, it was the booking Bellingham received just before half time for a foul on Phil Foden. Bellingham has been at the centre of a fierce debate in Spain about refereeing since he was sent off for swearing at referee Jose Luis Munuera during Madrid’s 1-1 draw at Osasuna in La Liga at the weekend.
The discussion quickly curdled into fresh suggestions from Madrid that La Liga referees discriminate against them. That is the way it is now: when a decision is given against a big side, in Spain or in England, the big side is utterly unable to accept it and the referee is deluged with the kind of threats that are bound to drive them away from the game.
Bellingham did not dispute his sanction this time but it does mean that he will now miss the first leg of Madrid’s round of 16 tie. His suspensions are mounting up.
Man City gained a small measure of consolation when Nico Gonzalez scored late on
After their 3-2 victory at the Etihad last week, the tie was effectively over by half-time of this second leg. Everyone knew there was no way back for City. Everyone knew they were heading for their 13th defeat in their last 26 matches.
All that remained was the confirmation and the confirmation was beautiful. It came a minute after the hour and Mbappe started and finished it. He stepped inside Foden, played a one-two and then curled a left-foot shot unerringly beyond Ederson’s right hand into the far corner.
City gained a small measure of consolation when a superb free kick from Omar Marmoush was tipped on to the bar by Thibaut Courtois and Gonzalez rolled the rebound over the line. When the City fans in the Gods applauded their goal, the Madrid fans cheered them with sarcastic delight.
Madrid will be the favourites to win this competition for the 16th time this season. The limit of City’s ambitions now will simply be to finish high enough in the Premier League just to qualify for it. Once, the idea of them failing to make the top four or five would have been unthinkable. Not any more.
