Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has lauded his side for holding their nerves to draw Real Madrid in a ‘chaotic’ Champions League quarterfinal first leg, MySportDab reports.
The Premier League and European champions, who breezed past Real Madrid in the last four of the competition last year, had a difficult time at Santiago Bernabeu, weathering the LaLiga and European giants.
Ahead of the match, Real Madrid had asked for permission from UEFA to close the roof of Santiago Bernabeu – a move which was meant to cook up a hostile atmosphere against City.
The permission was granted a few hours before the kick-off, and Manchester City indeed played under a rejigged Santiago Bernabeu with an unfriendly atmosphere featuring over 80,000 Los Blancos fans.
Pep Guardiola, who saw his side go in front twice before settling for the draw, described the game as a chaotic encounter.
Speaking in post post-match press conference, the Spaniard hailed his team for a spectacular game against the toughest European opponents so far.
The two-time treble winner added it was not the result he expected but not a bad one either.
“It’s not a fantastic result for us because we wanted to win, but I am satisfied,’ he said
‘‘We played with courage and strong personality and this is what we have to do in Manchester.’’
‘One of the secrets at the highest level is to adapt quickly to the chaos,’ Guardiola added.
Delving deep into why he described the game as chaotic, Guardiola said the Real Madrid pitch was bad but they had to adapt to the chaos.
‘’Don’t complain. I remember that Real Madrid always had very good grass, it was like a carpet, but today that was not the case. But I’m sure that they will fix it no doubt about it and no problem.’’
“One of the secrets at the highest level is to adapt quickly to the chaos,’’ he added.
The stage was set for an all-time European classic when Bernardo Silva scored a stunning freekick just 108 seconds into the game.
Real Madrid fought back with a quick double from Rodrygo and Vinicius Jr to turn the game around.
In the second half, two long-range goals, scored in less than three minutes, by Josko Gvardiol and Phil Foden saw Manchester City chalk off Real Madrid’s lead and turn the game around.
Trailing 3-2 in a flash, Real Madrid refused to budge. They fought back with a thunderbolt strike from Camavinga to make it 3-3.
It ended in a six-goal thriller – a fair result ahead of the second leg at Etihad next week.
