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24 min: Rordygo one-twos at speed with Valverde down the right, and finds himself in a bit of space. But his cross, intended for Vinícius Júnior, is overhit.
22 min: Off the ball, Haaland presses his big paw into Asencio’s chest, and shoves him to the ground with a cartoon-style flip and flourish. Asencio descends in an arc and hits the turf with perfect comic timing. That needed swannee-whistle sound FX. The referee has a quick word, but both players seem friendly enough, regardless.
20 min: City have seen most of the ball. But it’s Real who have had all the chances.
18 min: In fact that cross pinged off Matheus Nunes’s elbow, but the point stands. Now Rodrygo is flipped into the air by Nico González down the left, and when the free kick’s sent in, Tchouaméni eyebrows wide right. That was close, though Donnarumma almost certainly had it covered.
16 min: Bellingham steals the ball 30 yards out, and feeds Vinícius Júnior down the left. Vinícius Júnior enters the box and reaches the byline, only for his cross to be bundled out for a corner by Matheus Nunes. Real want a penalty, but they’re not getting it, the ball having shaved the top of the City defender’s arm from extremely close distance. Nothing comes of the corner.
14 min: Doku skips in from the left and aims a curler towards the bottom right. Blocked. The dribble exquisite, the shot not so much.
13 min: City calm things down a bit by passing the ball this way and that along the halfway line. They’ve enjoyed 73 percent of possession so far.
11 min: Rodrygo jinks in from the right and is clipped from behind by Foden, who goes into the book. That’s a daft challenge, on the halfway line with Rodrygo going nowhere.
9 min: Cherki sends Rudiger off to the shops for a copy of Marca, a lovely drop of the shoulder down the right flank. Rudiger is fortunate the covering Bellingham is on hand to deal with Cherki, or the City man would have been away.
8 min: It could already be 2-1. Somewhere in the multiverse, it is. This surely won’t end goalless.
6 min: O’Reilly finds a bit of space down the left but can’t find Silva in the middle with his cross. Real counter. Rodrygo romps into acres down the right and crosses low for Vinícius Júnior, racing in from the left. Vinícius Júnior tries to dink over Donnarumma but sends the ball wide left. This is gloriously open.
5 min: The resulting corner is cleared by City, who attempt to launch a counter. Cherki is in space on the right, but the ball doesn’t get to him in time and Real regain their shape and their composure. What a start!
4 min: Rodrygo taps the free kick to the right for Valverde, who drives low and hard. The shot takes a huge deflection off a City shirt. Donnarumma is rooted to the spot, wrong-footed, but the ball flies inches wide of the right-hand post. Half of the stadium thought that was in.
3 min: … VAR gets involved and it turns out the contact was made just outside the box. City get away with a huge one. But it’s still going to be a free kick in a dangerous position just to the left of the D.
2 min: Vinicius Junior snaffles a loose ball and dribbles into the City box down the inside-left channel. He goes over Matheus Nunes’s leg. The ref points to the spot! Penalty! But …
1 min: A fierce old atmosphere in the Bernabéu. It’s Real Madrid in the Champions League after all. It’s Real Madrid versus a Pep team. And then …
Hats off to Erling Haaland, who goes out of his way to say hello to a couple of the tiny mascots and give them a high five. Once he goes off down the line, the little lads embrace each other with excitement, their day made. So sweet. Then City get the ball rolling.
The roof at the Bernabéu is shut … and the teams are out! Real Madrid wear their world-famous meringue-white shirts, while Manchester City sport those aforementioned green video-game tops. Erling Haaland, Rayan Cherki, Ronarid, Jet Set Willy and all of the other sprites will start scrolling smoothly in a couple of minutes.
Pre-match postbag. Gotta say, it’s not exactly teeming over. But quality always trumps quantity.
“Pep usually seems to overthink Real even more than his other big adversaries. City, who should win comfortably, will, by a mixture of super messing around and comedy-gold defending, conspire to lose” – Tim Stappard
“If Thibaut Courtois doesn’t play an absolute blinder, then his form is officially an anti-Liverpool conspiracy” - Matt Dony
Pep Guardiola speaks to TNT Sports. “Last season for many reasons we were not able to compete against [Real Madrid] … hopefully this season we can do it well … we played good against Sunderland … some patterns I liked … Madrid play differently but I am looking forward to that … [Rayan Cherki] is so young … he has a huge personality … something unique in the final third … I have been here 23 times in this stadium … as a player and manager … 55, 56 times against Madrid in my career, my life … whatever happened, Madrid is one of the greatest teams ever.”
Back in the Real world, Xabi Alonso finds himself under an absurd amount of pressure, and here’s the latest reason why. Sid Lowe reports on a display of cinematic Celta supercool.
Manchester City will tonight sport their fourth-choice kit. It’s a green affair with jet-set geometric squiggles all over it, and a chip embedded within the City crest that, if you were to wave a newfangled “smart electric telecommunications device” over it, unlocks a slew of bonus features for Emlyn Hughes International Soccer on the C64 EA Sports FC 26. This is the sort of news that will either excite you or make you feel so very old and useless. Latest score: Excited 0-1 Old & Useless
The big news for Real Madrid: Kylian Mbappé, the four-goal hero of the 4-3 win at Olympiacos, is only on the bench. He’s got a broken finger as well as a leg problem.
Manchester City’s line-up is less seismic in terms of news: they name the same starting XI that swatted aside Sunderland 3-0 on Saturday.
The teams
Real Madrid: Courtois, Valverde, Asencio, Rudiger, Carreras, Tchouameni, Bellingham, Rodrygo, Ceballos, Vinicius Junior, Gonzalo Garcia.
Subs: Lunin, Gonzalez, Endrick, Mbappe, Guler, Francisco Garcia, Diaz, Cestero, Mastantuono, Martinez, Valdepenas.
Manchester City: Donnarumma, Matheus Luiz, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Silva, Gonzalez, Foden, Cherki, Haaland, Doku.
Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Reijnders, Ake, Marmoush, Ait Nouri, Savio, Khusanov, Bobb, Lewis.
Referee: Clement Turpin (France).
Preamble
Real Madrid are sixth in the Champions League table, and second in La Liga. So of course their coach Xabi Alonso, just a few minutes in the job, is already in danger of the push. Of course he is. He could probably do without the visit of Manchester City, then. Not that life is as comfortable as it usually is for Pep Guardiola’s men: they’re currently outside the top-eight places in the Champions League, and while they’ve scored 11 goals in their last three games, they’ve conceded six, and before that were dispatched 2-0 at home by Bayer Leverkusen. This battle between two giants of world football not quite on top of their game kicks off at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
