Manchester City 's players have landed back in the UK following their Champions League heartache in Madrid.
The English champions were aiming to return to the final of the European Cup for the second straight season and looked on course for a Paris date with ten minutes remaining in the Bernabeu. Riyad Mahrez scored the opener on the night, putting City ahead 5-3 on aggregate.
However the 13-time European champions staged yet another comeback late on as Rodrygo proved an unlikely hero, scoring twice in two minutes to send the tie into extra-time. Los Blancos then took the lead for the first time in the semi-final thanks to a Karim Benzema penalty.
It completed a barely fathomable turnaround - and not for the first time in this year's competition. Madrid have now seen off PSG, Chelsea and City in dramatic circumstances. It leaves Pep Guardiola's outfit licking their wounds after yet another failure in Europe. The club's hierarchy crave Champions League success, but it continues to elude them.
The defeat will be made all the more painful given their dominance across the two-legs. City were sensational in their 4-3 win at the Etihad and should've taken a great lead to the Spanish capital. In Madrid Ederson was barely tested until Rodrygo's opener on 89 minutes.
Guardiola went with a near full strength XI and welcomed back Kyle Walker, who was able to combat the pace of Vinicius Jnr down Madrid's left flank. The Catalan coach has now missed out on Europe's top prize for the past 11 years with his last success coming in 2011 with Barcelona.
Monaco, Tottenham, Liverpool and Lyon are among the teams to quash Guardiola's and City's ambitions. Madrid can now add themselves to that list. The 51-year-old confessed that his latest heartbreak wasn't a new feeling, but was still tough to swallow. He said: “I have had bad defeats in the Champions League before. [Such as] Barcelona against Chelsea when we played two exceptional games and couldn’t make the final. But, yeah, it’s tough. We can’t deny it.
"We were so close to reaching a Champions League final. We didn’t play that good in the first half but we were much better in the second half, we controlled the game and we found the goal. Unfortunately, we could not finish [it] when we were close.”
The Spanish champions finished the game with 44 percent possession, with the majority of their efforts coming in extra-time. Jack Grealish missed a chance to make the game safe when City were 1-0 ahead and Guardiola never felt his side were being bombarded.
He said: “We did not feel like we were under siege. We were in the lead, we had been very good in the second half and we had two [more] good chances, one of them very clear with Jack [Grealish]. They attacked with five: four forwards and Militao.
"But at that moment we didn’t feel that we were in trouble with the way that they attacked and just as the moment when we were at our best, they found the goal. Then one minute later, they found another. They have done it lots of times in their history so it could happen to us.”
For the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling and Rodri a first Champions League crown remains elusive. The team's focus now, following their dejection in Madrid, will be winning their final four games in the Premier League to ensure their retain their title.
Newcastle are next up for City at the Etihad with Guardiola confessing: “We need one or two days but we will rise, we will come up."
