Real Madrid – Manchester City (1-2): “We lay back at the end” | Champions League 2019

Casemiro acknowledges the decline of the last minutes against the City. ZZ: “You have to be focused”

The Bernabu left sad, not knowing very well what had happened in the last minutes to suffer such a skid. From victory to defeat. From always tasty 1-0 in the European qualifiers to the terrible 1-2. Whites seem to have lost their spell in their favorite tournament, the one they dominated with an iron fist not so long ago. Now he has to play the mash in Manchester in three weeks, if he wants to enter the rooms. But first he has another vital mission in the League: not losing Sunday in the classic. If you repeat your tragic week last season, it will be next Monday – at the beginning of March – almost ruined in the two major competitions. It will seem then impossible missions to trace the derailed crossing on the lap and cut in the League the five points plus the goal average that Barcelona pokes in case of a new assault on Chamartn.

Zinedine Zidane You must reactivate your team in the next few hours after the blow of this Wednesday, a pseudo result that forces you to review your approach. Without Kroos in the field, Madrid was lacking in fluency. Nor did he manage to manage the advantage in the final stretch, with the team too exposed to the City's burdens. Until Casemiro, with problems throughout the night before the pressure of the English, recognizes the low. It has been 75 spectacular minutes, but the last 15 we lay back. The Brazilian shares the opinion of his coach, when qualifying with good note the meeting before the visitor comeback. He also tried to be optimistic, despite the result. The tie is not lost because if there is a team that can overcome, that is Real Madrid, record, imitating the message of Guardiola, about the white danger on the way back.

But the truth is that the atmosphere that floated in the Bernabu was of strong disappointment and some fear of the Sunday classic. After a few months of growth, Madrid is now exposed to a duel in the sun with Messi in the classic It is an opportunity, Zidane remembered at midnight, in need of strong doses of motivation to lift her delicate wardrobe. He must get his players to forget the two defeats they have followed, especially this Wednesday, to try to win Barcelona and win the league leadership. Until the draw will be a valid result, with many days ahead. Anything before another hit at home against the Catalans, for the tear that will entail in the classification.

“We lacked 10 minutes of concentration”

He had been going through Madrid all season wondering if this short-lived version, poor goal but hard on defense, will be enough to advance in the Champions League. For more than an hour, the Bernabu was excited with that 1-0 worked that Isco led to the scoreboard, but the reaction of the City, with a super talent like From Bruyne at the controls, he took Madrid ahead, undone back and angry at the arbitration. It could not be won. We have given everything in the field, we have lacked 10 more minutes of concentration. It has been a physical and even match and we have paid for it, Zidane analyzed, after the toughest night of his second stage on the white bench. Your bet did not go well.

The thick tacticism of the first part, with the two teams more to protect themselves than to look for the opponent's tickle, jumped through the air in the final stretch, where the best legs of the City and its offensive quality ended up imposing themselves. Real Madrid missed both, with no options to sentence the counter after getting 1-0. This is football. We can't change it. We have to get the positive, despite what has happened in the final 15 minutes. These mistakes are paid, are part of football and it is already. Now we know what we have to do. We have to win there, peda the French technician without too much faith, even with the sadness stuck in the speech.