In his last team talk instructing his Real Madrid players to aim for – and believe in – the improbable on Wednesday night, Carlo Ancelotti paused his short speech and asked them all to look at a big screen. On it was a video of key moments from the matches in which Madrid have come from behind to win this season. They had done it eight times before the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Manchester City.
Ancelotti then took his place on the touchline at the Bernabeu. He waited a long time to see any evidence that reminding his experienced, worldly, warrior squad that they are never really beaten had had any effect.
For most of the first 72 minutes in which Madrid needed to score to make up a 4-3 first-leg deficit, there was little hint of the driving energy that had, among other comebacks, erased Paris Saint-Germain’s 2-0 aggregate lead in the last-16 stage. There was barely a sign of Luka Modric and Karim Benzema combining an indomitable spirit with their technical excellence, as they had after Chelsea took control of the quarter-final, and the Madrid veterans regained it.
As for the last 18 minutes of the normal 90, the period after Riyad Mahrez had extended the aggregate scoreline to 5-3 in City’s favour, for 17 of those minutes Madrid looked more fearful of a thrashing than confident of a miracle. But for Ferland Mendy’s reflex clearance off the goal-line City would have led 6-3 overall.
But the events that then crammed into a surreal 89 seconds, from just before the clock ticked into stoppage time to shortly before stoppage time was completed, would tell a story far more dramatic than anything in Ancelotti’s motivational video.
Against PSG, Madrid had been outplayed for most of the first 150 minutes of the tie. They scored three times in the last half-hour to eliminate the team of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
Against Chelsea, the then European Cup holders, 21-year Brazilian winger Rodrygo came off the bench to volley in the goal that would take the quarter-final into extra time, where Madrid made momentum and a roaring home crowd work in their favour.
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Against City, the drama was more concentrated, the young substitute doubly heroic. Rodrygo burnished an already glowing reputation as a lucky charm in European matches by scoring not once but twice when Madrid’s lifeline in the competition hung by a single thread.
He converted a Benzema cross in the 89th minute to equalise Mahrez’s goal. He then soared, all 1.74m of him, above City’s tall markers to head in his second and set the aggregate scoreline, after a 180 minutes largely controlled by City, at 5-5.
“When we made it 1-1, I saw them [City] sink a bit,” observed Thibaut Courtois, the Madrid goalkeeper who, with a series of saves, had maintained the possibility of a comeback. “I’m not saying they froze, but they knew anything could happen from that point.”
Five minutes into extra time, a foul on Benzema by Ruben Dias gave Madrid a penalty, converted by Benzema. A tie in which City had held the lead from the second minute at the Etihad until the 90th minute at the Bernabeu had finally swung Madrid’s way.
“We were brilliant across the whole tie,” Pep Guardiola, the City manager, told Spanish television, “and we came very close. But unfortunately we haven’t achieved our objectives.”
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City were close last year, too, to having the club’s name etched for the first time on club football’s most coveted trophy. But six years into Guardiola’s time in charge, that silver medal, having lost 1-0 to Chelsea, remains the best Champions League finish yet for the club, who may again have to watch a team they have bettered in the English season go on to become European champions.
City beat Liverpool to the 2019 Premier League title: Liverpool won that season’s Champions League. City finished well above Chelsea in the domestic table last May. City lead Liverpool in the gripping 2021/22 Premier League title race.
But Liverpool will now face Madrid in Paris later this month in what will be a compelling final, and a classic: two clubs with long, successful histories in the competition, and two previous final meetings – in 1981, in Paris, Liverpool won; in 2018, in Kiev, Madrid triumphed – in the back catalogue.
Liverpool will likely start as favourites. But they will know that a big lead needs to be established against this Madrid team, the kings of the cliff-edge comeback, before victory can be assumed.
