There is a lot of talk about how Manchester City dominated Real Madrid on Wednesday. For example, Jamie Carragher suggested that the best team loses by mentioning that the best team does not always win the Champions League. The evidence for this claim is strong: this season there have been 70 editions of the Champions League, and English teams have only won it 15 times. Obviously, the best team hasn’t won the title at least 55 times.
This is rubbish. Regardless of refereeing errors – or potential intentional errors if you ask Chelsea fans about the 2009 semi-final – the better team always wins. The explanation is simple: the best team scores more and concedes less. The problem with detractors is that their criteria for determining what constitutes a better team is subjective to their opinions and not the scoreboard. For example, possession and creating chances are important, but finishing chances and brilliant goalkeeping are not.
Wednesday’s tie – and the pundits surrounding it – is a clear demonstration of this error.
Andriy Lunin’s performance this season is an indication that Real Madrid are not a good team because a superior team’s goalkeeper should only distribute the ball to his feet instead of stopping shots, according to logic . Indeed, distribution is important and useful, but suggesting that a brilliant shooting performance is evidence of an inferior team completely overlooks one small detail: Goaltenders are allowed to use their hands to block shots. The key function of the position is not distribution to the feet but use of the hands. Additionally, the fallacy that a good goalkeeper performance means the team played poorly is offensive to goalkeepers because it means they are not part of the team.
It is undeniable that there is a bias in favor of strikers in football. The only central defenders to win the Ballon d’Or are Franz Beckenbauer, Mathiar Samer and Fabio Cannavaro, and the first two did so for their playmaking abilities as sweepers. Lev Yashin is the only goalkeeper to win this award, no one else has come close. We have become accustomed to punishing teams and players for a defensive masterclass, and this logic leads to the absurdity that Real Madrid did not play well.
Playing well means executing your plan for the game. Real Madrid achieved this goal, but not without fault. And even then, the plan was not to defend for 90 minutes – and Real Madrid did no such thing.
If we cut the part of the match where Real Madrid led 0-1, that is to say between minutes 12 and 76, the match was balanced. Real Madrid relied on the counterattack and pushed City higher up the pitch. The middle third was more contested. Real Madrid had more of the ball, instead of clearing it without a target. The first two shots of the match came from Real Madrid, first the long-range one from Edurardo Camavinga, then the goal from Rodrygo. The hosts’ only half-chance was Kevin De Bruyne’s poor 8.th-minute center from their right. Otherwise, the game was tied.
After the equalizer, Carlo Ancelotti introduced Luka Modric and Brahim Diaz – and later Lucas Vazquez – to his team. Real Madrid still defended more than kept possession, but they played more like they did before Rodrygo’s goal. He pressed higher up the pitch. After recovering the ball, he started to counter-attack rather than just clearing. While the expected goals at 120 minutes are 2.73 to 1.4 in City’s favor, the overtime stats are much closer. Real Madrid had an expected goal of 0.3 and City’s of 0.48.
Ancelotti’s plan makes perfect sense. Real Madrid were playing an away game against the second best possession-based team in the world. So he asked his team to rely on counter-attacks to score an early goal and prepared them for a defensive masterclass. Counter-attacks and blocking higher would have broken Madrid’s defensive structure and opened up spaces for City to score another goal. Instead, Real Madrid responded to the clearance while they were ahead. Without a mistake from Antonio Rudiger, it would have worked perfectly.
Rudiger’s error equalized the scoreboard. Ancelotti therefore first called on Modric for Toni Kroos. Modric, especially with his fresher legs, is better at pressing higher up the pitch, which he did after his arrival. Brahim arrived shortly after for Rodrygo, but he played more centrally, also to press opponents higher up the pitch.
Camavinga was criticized for his poor distribution during the match, but it is most likely that this was intentional: he never intended to distribute the ball in the first place. After Real Madrid returned to the counterattack, their passes became more precise. 90 years of Real MadridthThe one-minute counter-attack is the best example of this, and it is reminiscent of a similar play in the same stadium two years earlier. Both times he received the ball in the Madrid box, calmly passing it to Vini Jr. who was waiting outside. Then Vini fouled and the offense died. This time he sent it to Brahim, who could have scored but for Rodri’s fault, earning him a yellow card. This sequence occurred more during extra time, as Real Madrid players began passing the ball to their attackers after gaining possession, instead of clearing it.
Finally, detractors ignore mental toughness. To be bombarded by the second best team in the world at the Etihad for 64 minutes and not lose your nerves – or your legs – is quite an achievement, a strength we have come to associate with Real Madrid. This is certainly the result of Ancelotti’s work, the mentoring of alumni and the aura of the club. But it worked because the club recruited capable players and the most experienced coach in history prepared his players and then gave them this task.
Ancelotti planned to score and defend the advantage. For 76 minutes, things went according to his plan. If Real Madrid had conceded earlier, then they would have started to counterattack again, just like they did after De Bruyne’s equalizer.
Critics are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. The fact is that the better team is the one that wins the tie by scoring more, including on penalties. This is exactly what Real Madrid did. Real Madrid’s superior goalkeeping, elite defending and more clinical finishing do not make them inferior, as these are as important as creating chances. Manchester City were better at creating chances, but as Pep Guardiola realized in 2022, chances are useless if you can’t take them. The best team is not measured by the number of chances they create but by the number they finish.
Both teams had their plans for the game, but the better team won because they executed their plans better based on the needs of the game at any given moment: low blocking and clearing when you’re ahead, and mid blocking and counterattacks when she is ahead. is an equality.