More than five months may have passed in between the coups, but the towering monuments keep on falling.
Liverpool out, ambushed by Atletico Madrid; Juventus toppled, by an upstart Olympique Lyonnais on away goals; Real Madrid sent tumbling by a smarter Manchester City.
For the first time in well over a decade, the Champions League’s quarter-finalists will include none of the champions from either England, Spain or Italy.
And although the out-of-joint timeline of this year’s competition meant all domestic prizes had been wrapped up before the European Cup’s knockout phase had moved up its gears, it still looks a very unusual landscape.
And for Manchester City, it cannot help but look like a huge opportunity.
Whichever club ends up as 2020 European champions, they will have progressed from the last-16 stage, which City passed through via an impressive 4-2 aggregate victory over Madrid on Friday, to glory via just three matches.
Uefa’s decision to make the quarters and the semis one-legged affairs in the neutral venue of Portugal’s capital Lisbon was a necessary reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, and its impact on the football calendar.
If the format is novel, so is the make-up of the so-called ‘Final 8’. A large majority of the clubs now preparing for Lisbon have never won a European Cup. While the likes of City and Paris Saint-Germain, who have come under transformative new ownership in the last 12 years, can consider themselves superpowers in the sport, both remain hungry for the endorsement a first Champions League title will bring.
Elsewhere, this is truly the year of the freshmen: Atalanta, in their first-ever season in the Champions League, are still involved, while Juventus are not. RB Leipzig are three matches from glory, having never been this far in Europe’s principal club competition.
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Manchester City v Real Madrid ratings
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MANCHESTER CITY: Ederson – 8, Saved well in quick succession from Benzema and Hazard in the first half, and was in the right place to thwart Benzema again in the second. AFP -
Kyle Walker – 8, Blazed high and wide after one eye-catching maraud upfield in the first phase, and had another shot pawed away by Courtois in the second. Excellent in defence. PA -
Fernandinho – 8, Knocking on, aged 35, and out of position at centre back, yet still so reliable. Made one important block, and a variety of sound interceptions. AFP -
Aymeric Laporte – 7, Allowed Benzema to wriggle away from him in the first half, but Ederson spared him. Made an important block from the same man in the second half. Reuters -
Joao Cancelo – 6, Lapsed to let Rodrygo past him to set up Benzema for the leveller on the night. Will have been happy to see his opposite number go off. PA -
Rodrigo – 7, The former Atletico Madrid midfielder was steady enough on the ball, but had Laporte to thank after one error might have cost City. EPA -
Ilkay Gundogan – 8, Canny through-ball for De Bruyne was his high point in attack, while in defence he made a goalline block to deny Modric. AFP -
Phil Foden – 7, The young Englishman was so vibrant in City’s fast start, but had to give way for Bernardo Silva in the second half. AFP -
Kevin De Bruyne – 9.5, Sublime. So good, he started taking the mickey. Like when he shot from a corner and nearly scored - twice. EPA -
Raheem Sterling – 8, Will rarely score an easier goal than the one that gave City an early cushion in this leg. Impeccable until he was subbed with 10 to go. Reuters -
Gabriel Jesus – 9, Executed the high press to perfection when he robbed Varane for the opener, and finished brilliantly after another error by the same player later on. EPA -
Substitutes: Bernardo Silva – 6, On for Foden, and could have had a goal soon after – but might have been better off passing to De Bruyne instead of shooting. Reuters -
David Silva – 7, Came on for Sterling with 10 minutes left, and indulged in a personal game of keep-ball thereafter. AP -
Nicolas Otamendi – NA, Made a very late appearance for Rodrigo and City set about closing out the tie. AFP -
REAL MADRID: Thibault Courtois – 6, Awful with the ball at his feet. Dallying didn’t help for the opener, and was lucky not to give away another to De Bruyne, but still made some vital saves. Getty -
Dani Carvajal – 6, Made one crucial last-ditch tackle on De Bruyne to keep the tie alive in the second half. Lucky not to give away a penalty for a foul on Sterling. AP -
Eder Militao – 5, Although it was Varane who eventually gave the goal away, Militao was equally ponderous for City’s opener. EPA -
Raphael Varane – 3, Comically bad defending for Sterling’s opener, and botched again in the second half to donate Jesus City’s second goal. AP -
Ferland Mendy – 6, Stuck to his task, but Sterling made him work so hard, and he was unable to affect the game in the other direction. Getty -
Casemiro – 7, His brilliant tackle on Sterling gave Madrid a lifeline when the game would have been over early on. AP -
Luka Modric – 6, He was needed on the ball more often in more dangerous areas. Booked for a foul on De Bruyne, who was running rings around everyone by then. Getty -
Toni Kroos – 5, Looked like a shadow of his former self as he was schooled by De Bruyne in their top-billing midfield battle. EPA -
Rodrygo – 7, Waltzed past Cancelo and picked a fine cross for Benzema to get Madrid back in the tie. Unlucky to be subbed on the hour for Asencio. Reuters -
Karim Benzema – 8, Carried the fight when Madrid were up against it in the first half, and netted a brilliant header for the equaliser. Reuters -
Eden Hazard – 5, Looked a long way short of full sharpness and scarcely troubled the City backline. AP -
Substitutes: Marco Asensio – 6, Brought on for Rodyrgo, who had been one of Madrid’s two brightest attacking threats, and failed to prise an opening. AP -
Federico Valverde – NA, A late replacement for Modric as Zidane threw caution to the wind at the end, but to little effect. AFP -
Lucas Vazquez – NA, One of three men thrown on at once with the minutes ticking away, but inconspicuous when he was on. AFP -
Luka Jovic – NA, On for Hazard, but had no discernible effect on the play. EPA
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As for Lyon, who meet City at the Jose Alvalade stadium on Saturday, they are no less plucky, against-the-odds survivors than Atalanta and Leipzig. It is 10 years since they made the last eight.
By the end of their tiring, taut 2-1 defeat in Turin on Friday, they had also achieved something nobody had managed for a decade: they had prevented Cristiano Ronaldo, Juventus’s talisman, progressing to a European Cup quarter-final.
Ronaldo, a Champions League winner with Manchester United and then four times with Real Madrid and the greatest ever goalscorer in the competition, registered his 170th and 171st European Cup goals against Lyon in Turin.
But, after Memphis Depay had put Lyon 1-0 up by converting a disputed penalty, a crucial away goal, Juventus needed three on the night. Lyon had taken a 1-0 lead to Italy from the first leg, played way back in February.
Ronaldo alone could not buckle them, and although Lyon spent much of the later part of Friday night in retreat, there can only be admiration for their organisation and courage.
Because France’s Ligue 1 season was abandoned due to the public health crisis, with no fixtures played since March, Lyon had just one competitive game to reset themselves, post-lockdown, for the Juve trip.
And that was a sapping, goalless 120 minutes, lost on penalties, in last Sunday’s French League Cup final against PSG. Juve, who won their ninth Serie A title on the trot two weeks ago, have played 15 games since Italian football restarted in June.
“I’m really proud of what we showed,” said Rudi Garcia, who took over as Lyon’s manager only in October and had lifted them only as far as seventh in Ligue 1 when football in France was effectively stopped.
“We needed talent, endurance, team spirit and intelligence, because we used our heads against Juventus. We may have lost on the night but with what we achieved in the first leg, we deserve to be in the quarter-finals.
“We now have to go on to another big achievement. City are the stronger club, we know that. But so were Juve. If our players needed any proof we can be a ‘big team’, they now have it.”
Over in Manchester, after City’s 2-1 win on the night over Madrid, those sentiments were being echoed by Pep Guardiola, City’s manager. “The big clubs lift the titles,” Guardiola said. “Real Madrid reached the final three times in a row [2016 to 2018]. This shows we can do it. We don’t have a lot of presence in Europe, so it is so important.”
