This past week saw the conclusion of the Champions/Europa/Conference League quater-finals. Nearly all of the 2nd leg matches played this week were at a knife's edge; where either team could reach the semi-finals. Two of the matches that were talked about were Real Madrid vs. Arsenal and Manchester United vs. Lyon.
Despite trailing 3-0 against Arsenal, there remained a talk of Real Madrid pulling off another 'remontada' (spanish for comeback). That was all the Madrid fans were hoping for. Their hopes weren't a naivity. They have previously pulled it off numerous times before. Such examples include a victory over PSG in the Round of 16 in 2022. They could've done it through the star players they possess. Such include: Kylian Mbappe; Vini Jr.; Jude Bellingham and Antonio Rudiger.
Unfortunately, that didn't come. They lost at the Bernabeu (Real Madrid's home), 2-1 (and 5-1 on aggregate). The media has come down hard on them as a result.
Jude Bellingham saw the videos, listened to the stories and heard the word remontada, "a million times" but it was easier said than done. "There is no magic," Real Madrid manager, Carlo Ancelotti, warned. In the end, there was nothing really, just another glimpse of reality, the true story of their season: a chronicle of a death foretold. No epic, no comeback, not even much mystique and certainly not much football. This time, Real Madrid couldn't escape themselves.
"This is the other side of football," Ancelotti said after the match. "Thereâs a happy part, which we have experienced many times, and a sad part which is today. We have to accept it, and the 'sticks', the criticisms, that will come. Over the two games Arsenal were better than us."
Not just over the two, in the two. "We were nowhere near it, thatâs the fact; they could have had way more, weâre lucky to get away with three," Bellingham said after the first leg and Madrid never looked like matching that in the second. Never mind three, they rarely looked like scoring one. The goal they did get was a gift, the kind of moment that often sets off the madness. Not this time. Over 180 minutes, Madrid had only six shots on target. Ancelotti said earlier in the season that they would, "never" have problems scoring but when it mattered Kylian MbappĂ© departed to whistles.
Ancelotti asked for head, heart and balls but there was no real reaction; no real rebellion and almost no ideas. Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, said it was one thing preparing for the chaos of this stadium, another to actually experience it. "You realise after two minutes that itâs bloody hard, that anything can happen," he said, only it didn't. His players would not let it; Madridâs players couldnât. Instead, Arsenal controlled. This was not the same as the first leg, Arsenalâs job done differently but the sense of impotence was familiar for Madrid.
There was an explosion at the Emirates Stadium and a moment at the Santiago BernabĂ©u when the olĂ©s went round. They came not from Madridâs fans but the Arsenal supporters high in the north-east corner, accompanying every pass, every touch from Martin Ădegaard, Mikel Merino, Declan Rice and the rest. That move did eventually end, Madrid racing up the other end and shooting, it's true but it is also true that the shot, easily saved by Arsenal goalkeeper, David Raya, was their first on target and they had been playing an hour. Only two more followed. "Raya didnât have to make any great saves," Real Madrid goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, said.
Courtois, on the other hand, did; which was part of the point. For the third home game in a row, Madrid were behind after 90 minutes. They needed extra time to get a 4-4 draw against Real Sociedad in the cup, lost 2-1 to Valencia and now this. This was a third Champions League defeat in a row. The second leg was their 12th defeat of the season, their sixth in Europe; they have conceded 66 goals.
They still have a Copa del Rey final to play and a league title to compete for and that has to change. Might this affect them? "No, no, absolutely not," Ancelotti said. "I told them, we have to deal with the sadness. Hold our heads high, learn, and fight to be better in the next game."
That, though, suggests they can be, when this season has offered little real evidence of that. Beyond the question of how this team respond in the short term, there are bigger, deeper questions. For now and for next season. When Madrid beat Manchester City at the BernabĂ©u, Ancelotti said: "Our season starts here." However, it didnât. The two legs of that tie remain the only moments when they impressed; think back and it's hard to recall another game where they did.
The surprise, perhaps, was that they made it this far: that was a play-off, donât forget. Eleventh in the group stage and thankful to be that high, they beat AtlĂ©tico, on penalties having been second best in the Copa Del Rey semi-final. At the end of the first leg against Arsenal, Bellingham had said that what had happened was what has been happening all season. Madrid had run 12km less that night â "Thatâs like a player and a half," Bellingham said and it was 8km less on Wednesday night.
Not that it was just about effort: it was about organisation, balance, ideas and a plan. At the end of the second leg, Courtois noted they kept putting in crosses and that was pointless. "We donât have someone like Joselu, a born striker," he said, something telling in the identity of the man they missed. They missed the injured Dani Carvajal too, although he was here confronting Bukayo Saka at half-time for having his panenka penalty saved. They certainly missed Toni Kroos, the irreplaceable player they didn't replace, the most significant of a handful of significant holes in the squad that need to be addressed and should've been addressed before.
Instead, they signed MbappĂ©, seven years late. That shifted the balance, personally and tactically. It is a simple truth that he and VinĂcius JĂșnior want to play in the same place.
Lucas VĂĄzquez and Courtois were the only players to talk post-game, to front up in defeat. As after the first leg, there was no MbappĂ©, no VinĂcius, no Rodrygo. The goalkeeper said Madrid couldn't be so individual: if two men are put on MbappĂ© or VinĂcius, they might get past once but not two or three times. It's a recurring theme. Ancelotti said they have lacked an identity, togetherness, commitment and sacrifice. They have lacked the structure a team needs too. "Tonight the team gave everything," he said. "We have not always been able to: compared to last year, this year there has been a lack of collective attitude."
He has been saying so from the very first week of the season. That's his responsibility and he's reminded of that often but, he, alone doesn't create a culture. He wasn't the one who refused to go to the Ballon dâOr ceremony. "If people think I am solely responsible [for this defeat], that doesnât change what I think," he said. It does not change what happens next either, does not protect him from the day that always arrives, sooner or later.
The hosts were only truly recognisable as Real Madrid by their iconic white kit. Their performance was anything but befitting of a team with such success in the competition, defending the trophy they won only last season but doing so in such a meek fashion that Arsenal will likely have departed the Spanish capital saying: "Was that it?"
Courtois was arguably the only Madrid player to come out of the tie with any credit and he told reporters afterwards: "I donât think [Arsenal goalkeeper David] Raya had to make a single great save. We lost against a superior Arsenal and we have to accept it. In the end, theyâre a team that defends well, is well organised, presses well, and itâs difficult to find space. We put in a lot of crosses, but this year we donât have Joselu, a natural striker up front."
âWe have to analyse carefully what we can do better.â
Courtois wasnât wrong; Real Madrid put in a lot of crosses. They attempted 23 in the first half alone, their joint-most on record in the opening 45 of a Champions League home match since records began in the 2003-04 season. It was a strange tactic anyway against an aerially dominant side like Arsenal but as Courtois said, Madrid not having a traditional number nine up front like last seasonâs semi-final hero, Joselu, meant the crossing obsession made little to no sense.
In total, Real Madrid recorded 33 crosses in open play, their most in a competitive game since attempting the same amount in a Champions League group match against Shakhtar Donetsk in October 2020. The last time they attempted more was against Real Valladolid in November 2018.
Itâs safe to say it didnât work. The visitors dealt with the crosses easily, with William Saliba making the most clearances (12) by an Arsenal player in a Champions League match since Per Mertesacker vs. Bayern Munich in March 2014 (also 12).
On a night when Madrid needed to score at least three goals, it wasnât ideal that it took until the 56th minute for them to have their first shot on target and that it was one of only three they managed in the whole game from their 18 shots.
After Saka put his poor penalty behind him to give Arsenal the lead with a lovely deft finish, VinĂcius JĂșnior almost immediately brought the BernabĂ©u to life when he pounced on a rare error from Saliba to equalise. It meant the Brazilian reached 10 Champions League goal involvements for a fourth consecutive season.
Was this it? The first chapter of the remontada everyone at Madrid seemed to be so confident about?
No and it never really threatened to be. Kylian Mbappé hobbled off with 15 minutes to go, having made little impact on either game; aside from almost winning a penalty in the first half only for referee, François Letexier, to overturn his initial awarding of it after a VAR review, seeing that his fellow Frenchman had gone to ground rather easily.
Gabriel Martinelli raced away to score Arsenalâs winner late on to rub salt into Madrid wounds, leaving no remontada, no chance of a 16th European title and only questions about where the club go from here.
It was a particularly poor start to their Champions League defence. Real Madrid lost three of their first five league phase games, beaten by Lille, AC Milan and Liverpool, ultimately finishing in 11th place and having to compete in a two-leg play-off against Manchester City.
Two impressive performances saw them go through 6-3 on aggregate against an out-of-sorts City, but it took a penalty shootout including an incredibly unlucky slip from AtlĂ©tico Madridâs JuliĂĄn Alvarez to see them into the last eight.
Madrid were outclassed by Arsenal across both legs of their quarter-final, though, suggesting that their bumps along the way had perhaps not been their characteristic, 'lulling the rest into a false sense of security', rather a sign that they simply arenât as good as they used to be.
In total, Madrid lost six of their 14 Champions League games this season, almost unthinkable for the most decorated club in the competitionâs history.
Spanish newspapers have echoed a sentiment of despair after Real Madrid failed to even hint at staging a remontada against Arsenal in the Champions League.
With the Champions League holders withering in their fight to keep their title defence alive, the Spanish front pages could only blast the efforts of the Galacticos come Thursday morning.
Marca, a notoriously pro-Real newspaper, said: "If you donât play anything, there will be no miracles," hitting out at the clubâs inability to even put the Londoners under the cosh. A similar feeling was displayed by Diario AS, who insisted that this Real Madrid were never capable of such a comeback by writing: "It was just a dream."
Mundo Deportivo were inclined to heap praise on Arsenal rather than blast the Madristas, hailing Bukayo Saka and his team-mates as âimmune to the pressureâ posed by the Bernabeu.
Catalan outlet, LâEsportiu, were in high spirits, meanwhile, making light of Real Madridâs, "exercise of impotence." Realâs failure came a day after rivals Barcelona progressed to the last four, despite suffering a 3-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund in the second leg.
Following a La Liga and Champions League double last season, then adding long-term target MbappĂ© last summer, it seemed almost certain Real Madrid would have a bright immediate future. However, things havenât quite worked out as they would have hoped.
They sit four points behind Barcelona in La Liga with seven games remaining and have only won one of their last five games in all competitions (D1 L3). Theyâve scored 20 goals fewer than Barça, and 24 non-penalty goals fewer. Four teams have conceded fewer than their 31 goals against, while six teams have a lower expected goals against than their total of 33.8.
Meanwhile, in Manchester, there was a remontada of a different kind. Going into the 2nd leg at Old Trafford, the match was evenly poised; with both sides being equally able to reach the semi-finals.
There is no shortage of historical last-gasp finishes in the long and storied history of Manchester United. They even have a word for it: Fergie Time.
Even by those lofty standards, what happened on Thursday in the reverse fixture against Lyon was⊠in a word: INSANE. It was as if a space/time vortex opened and swallowed up this mediocre side, then spat them out transformed, infused with the spirit of those bygone glory days.
Heading into the 2nd leg, the aggregate was 2-2. Then, the following happened in the match:
- United were up 2 â 0 at halftime.
- Lyon made some adjustments at halftime, then struck twice in six minutes to level the score.
- Lyon midfielder Coretin Tolisso drew a second yellow in the 89th minute.
- With an aggregate score of 4 â 4 at full-time, there would be another 30 minutes to play.
- Rayan Cherki put Lyon up in the 104th minute from a blistering left footed shot set up by Malick Fofana.
- In the 108th minute, Malick Fofana danced into the box and was clipped down by Leny Yoro. Referee pointed to the spot and Alexander Lacazette converted it in a cool-as-ice manner.
It was at this moment when some Man Utd fans had seen enough and had decided to leave.
- Two minutes later, Thiago Almada grazed Casemiroâs foot trying to clear the ball in the box. After a long look at the monitor, the referee granted the penalty, which Bruno Fernandes duly converted.
- Kobbie Mainoo then scored in the 120th minute.
- Harry Maguireâs headed goal came in the 121st minute.
- All the mayhem.
In essence, they came back from being 4-2 down and scored twice in the final minute of extra time to achieve an extraordinary 5-4 victory at Old Trafford and 7-6 aggregate win.
It's arguably up there with one of the best fightbacks in European compeition.
United displayed an evocative tifo in front of the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand before kick-off. The words on that tifo? Never. Gonna. Stop. It's part of the folklore at United, the stories they tell.
Add this to the tales to be passed down the generations. This isn't 1999, not the Camp Nou, not even the Champions League. Even that win was from only one down. This was the first game in major European football history to feature five goals in extra-time.
It was an exercise in self-destruction at that point, supporters watching in a different kind of disbelief at the capitulation they were witnessing. Then came the twist. United kept going. The pressure suddenly shifted. Key players showed their mettle.
Man Utd head coach, Ruben Amorim, speaking to TNT Sports, said, "The sound in the stadium for Kobbie Mainoo and Harry Maguire's goals was the best sound I have ever [heard]. A lot of people want to keep shirts, I just want to keep that sound. It is the best sound in the world."I feel for the people that had to leave when it was 4-2 because of the traffic. They will be gutted!"
"It is a special moment. We know we are underperforming and deserve all the critics. But we still have time to make something special of this season. We need luck with injuries. It is going to be tough."
"In my career I had one final. I had the semi-final in Turin and the final was also in Turin [semi-final opponents Athletic Club also hosting the Europa League final]. We lost the final, so let's change that."
It's actually quite amazing the contrast from both sides. One was expecting a comeback while the other didn't imagine it happening. As it turned out, the roles were reversed.
Real Madrid were unlucky. Just because they are synonymous with the Champions League, that doesn't mean they will always find a way to win. Sometimes, they just have to accept that a task is simply too great to overcome. They're a famous and one of the biggest clubs in the world. That doesn't mean they are invincible.
In terms of the Manchester game, to be honest, I would've been one of those fans who left early. Based on the performances this season, I couldn't imagine it happening. I'm obviously thrilled at the result. I can only hope that this performance propels them to winning the Europa League.