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It was around the 70th minute, shortly after Toni Kroos followed Luka Modric off the pitch, that the edges of the night began to sharpen a bit and this Champions League semi-final took on perfect clarity. Manchester City were going to win and Real Madrid were going to lose and no adjustment or tactic, no change or adjustment, was going to change that fact. Real were only leading 2-0, but the players were bruised and broken, scarred and scared, tired of hitting dead ends filled with blue shirts. Even the Spanish radio commentators at the back of the press gallery had given up shouting and urging for low and funeral voices. On the biggest stage, in their favourite competition, the most dominant club in Champions League history had been subjected to an intolerable level of stress and had simply exploded. Madrid is discovering that myth and aura alone cannot match the inexorable inevitability of hard power," writes Jonathan Liew in the Guardian. At the final whistle, City celebrated their qualification for the Champions League final after a 4-0 display against defending champions Real Madrid. "An overwhelming City," headlines El Pais. "The kind of blows that hurt," Marca suffers. "To cry", summarizes As to accompany a photo of Karim Benzema shot, he who has been the symbol of so many reversals of situation. "City claim to be the alternative to Real," El Mundo said. "City are destroying Madrid's European dream," concludes El Periodico.
To discover
- Champions League schedule and results
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We had to swallow the poison. All the pain we've had in a year, for a season, was there today (Wednesday). I have the feeling that for a year we had the fear in our stomachs of what happened last season, but today we came out with everything we had. Last season was very painful and people said it was a lack of character on the part of the players, but a year later we are showing how special these players are. Congratulations to our chairman, our owner and every last person (of the club) because they are working with a real purpose and now we are there," Pep Guardiola was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
In Italy, the one-sided match impressed. "Inter are waiting for City's Martians," headlines Gazzetta dello Sport, before describing: "The day had to come when the impossible return would not have succeeded, but not like this. City are a ruthless, extraordinary and endless goal machine and spectacle. And Real Madrid was swept away, overwhelmed, annihilated and humiliated.
»In Switzerland, Le Matin observes: "A first half flown over, a second mastered, Manchester City wrote one of its most beautiful European pages by taking out the defending champions, Real Madrid, in the semi-finals of the Champions League, Wednesday (4-0, first leg 1-1). No one knows what Pep Guardiola's dreams are made of, but all indications are that City's first 45 minutes at the Etihad looked like it. Rarely have we seen a Real so tossed around, powerless, cornered on his goal and the statistics were there to give the measure of the English hyper-domination.
»In Belgium, the demonstration is also dissected. "On June 10, in Istanbul against Inter, Pep Guardiola will have a second opportunity in seven years to cross the "line" (dixit Walker), to finally win this European Cup, away from Barcelona, with Manchester City, on which he has systematically stumbled since he joined the Premier League in 2016 – and many believe that the real final, Pep won it on Wednesday night. We'il see. This will be the second final of his tenure after the 2021 final, which lost 1-0 in Porto to Chelsea. In short, and Belgian, it will be De Bruyne (an assist on Wednesday) against Lukaku (an assist on Tuesday)," sums up Le Soir.