Real Madrid 3 Man City 1 (6-5 on agg): Pep heartbroken again as Benzema completes best comeback EVER in wild semi-final

PEP GUARDIOLA has found some extraordinary ways of losing major Champions League matches during six years as Manchester City boss. 

But none of them were remotely as maddening for the former Barcelona boss as this one. 

Two goals up on aggregate in the 90th minute of the second leg, before a febrile crowd which loves to hate him, Guardiola witnessed a footballing version of a nuclear meltdown. 

Real Madrid’s Brazilian Rodrygo struck twice in as many minutes to send the tie into extra-time, then conceded a Karim Benzema penalty and suddenly City face the very real prospect of ending the season potless. 

City had already squandered one chance to deny Liverpool a quadruple in the FA Cup semi-final, now they have surrendered another opportunity with Carlo Ancelotti’s Real off to face Jurgen Klopp’s side in Paris on May 28. 

Can they drag themselves off the floor to win their final four Premier League matches and pip the Reds to the title, after this agony? 

They will need to discover a new lease of resilience – a quality which deserted them here in the din of this famous old cauldron.   

City’s Champions League exit are often the product of Guardiola’s too-clever-by-half team selections – especially Lyon in 2020 and Chelsea in last year’s final. 

Before that, there were the ridiculous goal-fests which saw them pipped on away goals by Monaco and Tottenham. 

But this was the mother of all chokes.  

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If the first leg was 90 minutes of glorious, breathless lunacy, then it was pretty much the ‘new normal’ for the latter stages of the Champions League. 

These elite clubs embrace gluttony for better and for worse. Sneer at the obscene wealth and self-interest all you like but the drama, excitement and sheer weight of goals in the knock-out stages has been staggering in recent seasons.

It wasn’t like that when City came here for their first European Cup semi-final, six years ago to the day, for a tie that ended 1-0 on aggregate and which Kevin De Bruyne accurately described this week as ‘boring’.

This one certainly wasn’t a bore but it was a slow-burner for 74 minutes. More like an old-school European Cup semi, the sense of jeopardy palpable. 

Guardiola restored his A-list full-backs, Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo, who missed the first leg. Going against his own caricature, he picked a well-balanced team, probably his strongest. 

The Madrid media had been banging on about the ‘magic of the Bernabeu’ all week long, certain that the atmosphere would spook City. And they had a point.

Although the capacity is currently limited due to building works, when Guardiola’s name was announced over the PA system before kick-off, you could have heard the jeers in far-off Catalonia. 

During Benzema’s previous four Champions League games, in which he’d scored nine times, it felt as if the Frenchman could never miss.

But when presented with a decent early chance from a Dani Carvajal centre, Benzema headed over. 

Then an early flashpoint when, after City had won a free-kick and were demanding a booking from ref Daniele Orsato, Aymeric Laporte seemed to aim a slap at Luka Modric’s face before the Croat barged the City defender to the floor. 

Both were booked but Laporte looked lucky to escape a red card.

Unlike last week’s mayhem, this was tightrope football, any hint of a City error seized upon by a febrile home support – their din crackling in the eardrums like firewood.   

The City fans, hemmed into a corner up way in the Gods, belted out Blue Moon, almost within touching distance of the thing itself.  

There were moments of sorcery from Kevin De Bruyne, especially an artful little dink over the defence to free Bernardo Silva, whose snap-shot was pushed away by Thibaut Courtois.

There were Vinicius Junior and the inaptly-named Walker going at it like a pair of Olympic sprinters.

But it was a tense, edgy, compelling first half. 

Real flew out of the traps after half-time, Vincius flinging himself at a low centre but shooting wide. 

Walker appeared to get away with one when Vinicius darted ahead of him and he bundled over the Brazilian. 

But as soon as Walker limped off in the 74th minute, to intense jeering, City went up the other end and scored – Bernardo Silva with an emphatic switch-pass to the right, Riyad Mahrez leathering it home first time at the near post.

Until the 90th minute, City looked home and hosed.

Jack Grealish arrived as a sub and had two glorious chances, one hacked off the line by Ferland Mendy, but it hardly seemed to matter. 

Then, though, Benzema provided a flying assist and Rodrygo struck from close range. 

Still, City had only to survive six minutes of injury-time. They couldn’t even hold on for one. 

Carvajal lashed in a cross, Rodrygo leapt to thump a header past Ederson and the Bernabeu erupted in euphoric bedlam.

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And just three minutes into injury-time, Dias tripped Benzema in the box, Orsato pointed to the spot and the French master, who’d Panenka’d Ederson in the first leg, simply sent him the wrong way.

City couldn’t force an equaliser. Can they now find the motivation to hold off that Liverpool juggernaut? 

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk