Manchester City vs Real Madrid live updates (2024)

• Real Madrid beat Manchester City 4-3 on penalties
• The teams drew 1-1 on the night and 4-4 on aggregate
• The Briefing by Daniel Taylor, Sam Lee and more
• Real Madrid to face Bayern Munich for a place in the final

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The dream of an unprecedented ‘double treble’ is no more. Manchester City’s hold on the Champions League was wrestled away by Real Madrid on Wednesday, who will now take on Bayern Munich for a place in this season’s showpiece fixture.

After a thrilling 120 minutes in Manchester, Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic both missed from the spot as City, the defending champions, were beaten 4-3 on penalties after their thrilling quarter-final tie ended 4-4 on aggregate.

“I don’t know what to say, it’s just frustrating,” a bemused Ruben Dias told TNT Sports after the match. “We dominated the game, the whole game. Until the penalties, the effort was there. We had our chances but it's obviously difficult to take.”

Real Madrid will next take on Bayern Munich, who also defeated English opposition in the shape of Arsenal. Joshua Kimmich’s 63rd-minute header was enough to send the Germans through to the semi-finals 3-2 on aggregate after the two teams had drawn 2-2 in London in the first leg.

The winner of that two-legged tie will then take on either Paris Saint-Germain or Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final on June 1 at Wembley. But no Premier League team will contest the final at the home of English football on a pulsating night of European drama.

There are always eyebrows raised when Haaland is taken off before the game is won, because this was probably the second time it has happened since he arrived at City nearly two years ago. A lot is always made of his contribution when he is not scoring, and unless that verges into wild exaggerations about League Two there is merit in it.

His hold-up play has not been the best of late, but it remains the case that even when he is not actually contributing with touches, he is forcing the opposition to do something they do not want to do.

Last week he occupied two Madrid defenders, at the weekend he forced Luton Town to abandon their usual man-to-man press. But after the 90 minutes were up here Guardiola elected for something different: the all-action, more-touches style of Julian Alvarez.

The Argentina forward did offer more touches but little of substance, with Madrid absolutely packing the middle of the pitch, and he was less likely to win a header than Haaland, who won a few, but could not make them count. Haaland, of course, is City’s penalty taker.

It is rare that you see the 14-time champions of Europe playing underdog football, but Carlo Ancelotti’s tactics were effective for long periods.

Knowing the threat that Manchester City pose going forward, they kept a compact defensive structure and allowed City to circulate possession from side to side, and waited for their moment to punch on the counter-attack.

As Madrid shuffled across to plug any gaps, City could not go through the block so they were forced to go around it. Their 30 crosses before extra time were more than any Champions League encounter this season, which highlights how little they were able to penetrate through the centre of the pitch.

There was the occasional trademark De Bruyne runs in behind Madrid’s defence and an enticing back-post chip from Bernardo Silva, but Madrid largely contained City’s threat for long periods.

Rodrygo is not usually the first Madrid player to make the headlines — it tends to be his international team-mate Vinicius Junior or Jude Bellingham who steal the limelight.

With Kylian Mbappe expected to join from Paris Saint-Germain this summer, some outlets in Spain speculated that Rodrygo would be the player to make way for the Frenchman in Madrid’s star-studded attack. That is partly because of the Brazilian’s record this season — he had scored 16 goals in 43 games before this match, but has endured various goal droughts.

It has not deterred Rodrygo. He played a key role from the left in last week’s first leg at the Bernabeu, in which he scored Madrid’s second, and it was the same again at the Etihad. His opening goal illustrated his dedication: he sliced his first effort at City goalkeeper Ederson, but was quick to react to turn in the rebound.It was Rodrygo’s fourth goal in three games after going seven games without scoring. Mbappe’s likely arrival is unlikely to faze him.

Perhaps it should be made mandatory that any television replay of Rodrygo’s 12th-minute goal goes back far enough to include Jude Bellingham’s contribution. Not many players would have been able to control the looping ball that Dani Carvajal, Madrid’s right-back, had sent high into the sky. Yet Bellingham’s touch to kill the ball was exquisite: a genuine A-lister playing at the point of maximum expression.

Bellingham wanted to do more than just keep the ball in close proximity. For a player with his uncommon gifts, it was not enough just to maintain possession. He wanted to set his team away, quickly, devastatingly. His movement to elude Ruben Dias, the nearest defender, was all part of the same exercise. And, in that split second, you could hear a flicker of trepidation coming back from the stands.

That noise: every regular match-goer will know what it sounds like when apprehension takes hold of a crowd.

The home fans could recognise his brilliance. They longed for an offside decision to deny Rodrygo his goal. There was no intervention and, as the visiting team celebrated, we were reminded why Bellingham is an ideal wearer of Madrid’s No 5 shirt — the number, as he knew when he chose it, that Zinedine Zidane used to grace.

A semi-final meeting against Bayern Munich awaits Real Madrid, and Bellingham was asked if he is worried about that prospect.

"I wouldn't say worried, we're confident in our own ability," he said. "Everyone wrote us off before this game anyway saying that City were the favourites. Pretty much everyone put them in the final, so we've got nothing to be worried about.

"But we'll respect their talent and their quality and we'll have to approach it with the same focus as today."

Everyone knows Real Madrid are the kings of the Champions League.

But their dominance is more staggering with every statistic that is read out — at the start of May, they will head to their 12th Champions League semi-final in the last 14 years.

Bayern Munich stand in their way of another final.

If you had said to most Real Madrid fans at the start of the season that they would be heading to the Etihad with a defensive core of Lunin, Rudiger and Nacho in April, they would have winced.

But those three came to the fore in a way only Real Madrid players can do in the latter stage of the Champions League.

Lunin saved two penalties, holding his nerve to stay down the middle to thwart Bernardo Silva, while both of the starting centre-backs scored penalties.

Ruben Dias was struggling to hide his disappointment after that Champions League exit for Manchester City - and he knows the hosts had their chances to avoid all that shootout nastiness.

Here he is, talking to TNT Sports:

💬 "I don't even really know what to say. It's just frustrating. We dominated the whole game. The effort was there, we had our chances, but it's obviously a difficult one to take.

"You always end up doing everything to try and avoid going to penalties because in a way, that's what they wanted. But we look at it from our side. We look always at what we could do, and the team was there. We fought. We had our chances.

"Sometimes the ball goes in, sometimes it doesn't. But we now have to look forward to what's still to come in the season."

How City react to this now will be fascinating to see play out.

After conducting that pitchside interview, Bellingham soaked in more of the adulation from the travelling Spaniards.

And, unsurprisingly, they serenaded the 20-year-old with a chorus of Hey Jude, one of the songs played over the stadium speakers before kick-off.

As they so often do in this competition, the Real Madrid fans had the last laugh.

Here's more from Jude Bellingham's chat with TNT Sports, on the relief and the challenge of knocking Manchester City out of the Champions League:

💬 "It’s relief because you put so much into the game. I’ve played against them before when they snatch it away from you, so you have to work hard. I was dead on my feet at the end.

"It’s so difficult because they continuously probe you with the ball. They take you to positions you don’t want to go to. But we stood up really well and we worked hard.

"It was a similar game (to the first leg). A couple of us were doing roles we don’t always need to do. I was pressing very high. But you have to sacrifice your own game and we got the job done."

This will be an unfamiliar feeling for Man City players, especially those that joined the club last season.

Usually at this stage of the season, all they do is win - and as we all know, winning breeds more winning.

They have now got to haul themselves off the canvas and not let this defeat derail their domestic campaign.

Fortunately, they are not the only title challengers in that boat as Arsenal were beaten tonight and Liverpool face a 3-0 deficit heading to Italy to face Atalanta in the Europa League tomorrow.

And so ends this season's Champions League as far as English clubs are concerned.

They didn't get off to the greatest start when both Manchester United and Newcastle finished bottom of their groups, but Arsenal and Manchester City flew the flag in their absence.

That was, until tonight.

Arsenal were beaten by Bayern's experience in Munich while City were beaten by... er, Real Madrid's experience... in Manchester.

It leaves a star-studded semi-final cast, but one that is without a Premier League representative for the first time in four years.

A calm, collected Jude Bellingham enjoyed that. The Real Madrid midfielder has just been speaking to TNT Sports and for him, it's all about their boss, Carlo Ancelotti:

💬 "I think our biggest strength is he finds a way to let the boys play with freedom. Some teams are more organised and structured with their passages of play, but one of our biggest strengths is we are off the cuff and he is calm and confident.

"I caught him yawning before the game! I asked him if he was tired and he told me to go out there and excite him."

It's hard not to love that.

With Bayern Munich coming out on top against Arsenal tonight, and then last night's results, here is how this season's Champions League semi-finals look.

Will we get a German rematch at Wembley? We certainly won't be seeing an English team there.