Ancelotti has tailored his tactics. Playing football with an opponent would be death

Real Madrid knock out defending champions Manchester City after a penalty shootout. For 120 minutes, the Italian strategist’s perfectly thought-out tactics were on display, having learned from last year’s match. Although Guardiola tried to respond to the visitors’ set tactics, it did not lead to progression in the end.

Last year’s rematch

Real suffered a shameful 4-0 debacle in last year’s return leg. From the very beginning, the White Ballet players were very passive when defending and hardly played the ball at all. The pace set by the home side was almost lethal, which is why Bernardo Silva increased the score to 2: 0 with his second goal in the 37th minute.

Some footage shows Vinicius telling Ancelotti straight from the pitch to do something about it, only it was too late. The Italian strategist probably didn’t expect such a strong start from his opponent, he also probably thought Real would be successful in a deep block. The whole team paid the price.

Real in the first half

Right from the start of yesterday’s game, it was evident that Ancelotti had learned his lesson. Real wanted to play more on the ball and avoided the first attacking wave. Lunin or one of the defenders with a long kick, which could have looked defenceless, outmuscled the attacking Citizens. Moreover, a goal by Rodrygo in the 12th minute gave Real a valuable lead.

Moreover, Ancelotti knew very well that if his team decided to play football with their opponents, this would be the final stop. There is no better team in contemporary football than Manchester City and the Madrid big club’s set tactics looked accordingly.

Guardiola responded brilliantly

By the 2nd half, of course, Guardiola saw through the visitors’ tactics. During the 1st half you could see even Guardiola was surprised by Real’s display, he probably expected something else.

The Citizens players were already too good at counting on long kicks and the stoppers were ready for them. As a result, this led to Vinicius, Rodrygo and Bellingham not having many chances to get to the ball from long kicks. Días, Akanji and Walker often won the ball from the air, which led to increased pressure on the visitors’ defence.

However, the game changer came after Grealish was substituted. Substitute Doku set both Carvajal and Valverde in motion and even after a bit of lucky bounce, de Bruyne got to the ball in the whitewash and sent the game into extra time with a shot under the crossbar.

Nothing changed in extra time either

Although it looked like something unreal, Real played the same way in extra time. The players honestly made the opponents available, didn’t open any spaces defensively, and their active approach often only allowed Citizens to pass into the box.

Fans may have had flashbacks to the 2012 semi-final after Modric’s missed penalty, when the top 3 penalty takers failed. Luckily for them, the fantastic Lunin grabbed 2 penalties to send Real Madrid to the Champions League semi-finals. However, the most credit goes to Ancelotti with his brilliantly prepared tactics, although we can talk about how watchable it was.

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