Both Real Madrid and Manchester City won their respective Champions League matches.
Brahim Díaz fanned his winning goal at the RB Arena. PDO
Uefa had drawn the two biggest favorites to win the Champions League for the opening day of the quarterfinals.
But that’s where Kevin De Bruyne gave Manchester City the lead in Copenhagen after only ten minutes of the game, Real Madrid were struggling in Leipzig.
It would have been easy to simply acknowledge Madrid’s problems of Jude Bellingham absent, but even that doesn’t explain how easily the home team was able to panic Andri Lunin guarded goal.
In the Spanish league, the club giant is often supported by a kindly whistle-blowing referee, and apparently also Irfan Fear had received the same information. At least he rejected Leipzig Benjamin Šeško the opening goal, although the Slovenian was nowhere near offside. Someone with a slightly more critical attitude towards Real Madrid could have driven as well Dani Carvajal from the field after he bumped too hard Xavi Simons.
Football is a great sport because, based on club budgets, you can’t really predict future game events at all. At Parken, FC København equalized completely against the flow of game events, because the City goalie Ederson kicked his opening kick directly at the opponents. Made his FCK debut Magnus Mattsson scored a sensational 1–1 goal with his team’s first shot.
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Bernardo Silva (left) completed the winning goal for Manchester City. PDO
However, Köpis’ surprise disappeared even before the half-time whistle, when Bernardo Silva reacted the fastest to the loose ball and steered it into the back corner with his stick.
It remained the winning goal of the match, because in the second period we only saw by Phil Foden overtime 1-3 hit.
Díaz decided
The Champions League is a cruel game.
Leipzig would have deserved something from the fearless pressing game in the opening period. But everyone at RB Arena knew very well that their search time should have been used much more effectively.
Taking the role of Bellingham Brahim Díaz found his inner leo mess in the 48th minute by weaving past the three white shirts and firing Madrid’s winning goal accurately past the post.
The fact that the visitors’ best player was the Ukrainian striker Lunin tells everything about the course of the match.
Both super clubs got their match pairs on track. In these Eurocup playoff rounds, there is always the weakness that the surprises should last for at least 180 minutes. It is almost impossible for smaller clubs to advance to the quarterfinals, because the favorites should be kept in check both at home and away.
The Opening Day of the playoffs promised something, but in the end both Manchester City and Real Madrid won their respective matches. In addition, they get the deciding part of the match pair on their own home field. In other words, fans of City and Madrid can already think of suitable places to visit for the quarter-finals, even though neither game was convincing on Tuesday.
It is really hard to believe that Leipzig at the Santiago Bernabéu or København at the Etihad would be able to turn their quarter-finals to their advantage.
Fortunately for futs fans, Wednesday’s games (Lazio-Bayern Munich and PSG-Real Sociedad) basically promise more equal battle pairs.