MANCHESTER CITY vs REAL MADRID | Champions League Quarterfinal 2nd Leg | 17.04.24 | 21:00 CET

I love how Gab Marcotti calls out Bernardo Silva for being a salty crybaby. It's also good to see Stevie Nichols to finally admit that Real Madrid just gets the job done to win.

 

Didn't realise Walker was 33. Can't be much left in the tank

 

Ha. In the end Haaland accepted the defeat

Edit: I must say, I thought it was a brave move putting Nacho on Haaland, instead of Rudiger again. Free'd up Rudiger to read the game and through balls City put through brilliantly. (his mistake aside)

 

I know I was worried about him like everyone else before this match, but I had a feeling he’d be good. I remember so many times he’s stepped up in big moments to cover and performed well.

He’s definitely not what he once was, but Nacho is the perfect 4th CB for this club.

 

We'd be lucky to find similar Castilla players to take over from Nacjo and Lucas.

 

I really could care less but I don’t understand what all the whining is about, City is supposed to be the best team on the planet, have all their players available, playing at home which is a fortress, playing against a supposedly inferior Madrid without some starters, just score the goals and win the game, simple no? Unfortunately for them everything isn’t that simplistic.

 

Something I want to point out.

There has been a lot of talk about our mentality and commitment, and the way the club’s European pedigree seems to shine through when we’re up on the ropes.

In a way I think it’s very misleading. We were on stuck on 9 CLs for more than a decade. There were absolute stinkers in Europe during that time. Eliminations that weren’t just underachievement but embarrassing to the shirt in terms of effort and commitment.

This never say die attitude in these big ties was not always present and it’s not necessarily intrinsic to the club, even if our history helps facilitate and reinforce it in the right conditions.

Those conditions: I believe this has a lot to do with a collective effort by Carlo, Zidane, and the players throughout the last 10 years. We’ve had great leadership in the dressing room by some mental giants who used that win over and over.

Here is the exciting part: we will think of Wednesday’s triumph as a continuation of a theme but many of the players on the pitch and indeed some of those who stepped up in some of the biggest moments were not a part of the core that won 3 straight.

In other words, the manager and the older players have successfully passed that mentality on down to the younger group. And the club has done a great job adding strong personalities who are amenable to suffering for the team and are receptive to that message and culture.

Hope it continues. Between guys like Vini, Valverde, Bellingham, and Camavinga… I’m optimistic.

 

For sure, and I also think some credit has to go to Mourinho. He basically helped the team break the curse of the last 16 with 3 semi finals; and also helped us go through a lot of the ’character development’ that has returned to our DNA.

Ramos skying the penalty against Bayern, getting crushed by Dortmund. And that wild Clasico against Barcelona where Pepe got sent off. Those times laid the foundation for the monsters some of the guys later became.

 

A small amount of credit needs to go to Jose. The foundation that he laid getting us to the semis two years in a row where it was absolutely barren before was instrumental in changing the mentality of the club and players at the time. I remember the first year with CR and Pellegrini and we got knocked out by Alcocorn in the first round of the CDR and the round of 16 by Lyon. That’s pretty bleak.

 

any @Chinky24 or @mymy33 sightings after this herculean effort?

 

Great post. As others have said Mourinho had a big part to play, and although I’m glad we never continued in that style, I can see how important he was. I would also say the arrival of Cristiano and the captaincy of Ramos have been huge in developing that mentality.

 

Basically, all the crédit goes to Florentino.
He comes back in 2009, 5 years later finally gets It right (wins la décima) 10 years later he still at the club, AND we have added another 4 CLs maybe a fith. Easily the greatest president of any Sporting instituton, at least in the moderna era of sports....

Im simplifing everything.... What he has Had to do to get US here Is insane. The greatest RM legend in my opinión.

 

~ Thread 🪡

Real Madrid fans & Peñas around the world celebrating our victory in the Champions League QF 🌎

Feel free to reply with more 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/0iH2TVChEz

— 𝟲 🇨🇦 ¹⁵ (@Dr__Ignacio) April 20, 2024

 

Yeah. The Mourinho era was the beginning of steering the ship in the right direction.

Like it or not, he did make a lot of positive changes on how the club handled things.

 

I have watched the penalty shootout about 20 times by now. Anyone else?

 

One of the best parts is watching Pep celebrating Modric’ miss and then watching them cry after Rudi’s pen.

 

Call It whatever you want man.

 

Florentino is a good businessman. Whatever else people come up with (the boss, the loving and caring old man, etc.) is a product of their imagination. He knows what to do when the cameras are on.

For anyone who has followed Madrid on and off the pitch, it's clear that Florentino, at some point, saw himself as the club's central figure, making decisions that were outside his competence and scope.

He was quick to get rid of people like Carlo and Del Bosque when he deemed it necessary. Cold blood.

He is a great president, probably the best ever, and I hope whoever comes after him does business as well as he does. But I just can't put rich people on a pedestal like many people here do, whether they are players or Board members. It's weird because all this worshipping comes from people who probably repeat the new trendy "Billionaires shouldn't exist" stuff.

 

This is an unpopular opinion on here but Mourinho is a big mixed bag at best in this equation IMO.

Yes, he introduced some steel and pride and resolve into a team and squad that really needed it. The 2012 league title is probably a significant part of the story here. He got us over the Round of 16 curse.

But if Carlo and Zizou established a culture of situational tactical fluidity, trusting the players, and encouraging them to express themselves and believe to the last minute, Mou is ironically a lot more like Pep: it was about his system, his tactics, his attitude, his way or the highway. And he famously did not trust his players in some big moments—to me the blame for the 2012 CL semis exit was more on him than anyone else. He tried to fit square pegs in round holes. And he went to war with his own dressing room and produced an absolute disaster of a final season here.

Agree that Cristiano and Ramos were a big part of the equation.