Pep Guardiola admitted Manchester City’s hopes of progressing to the Champions League quarter-finals are distant after a 3-0 defeat in their last‑16 first leg at Real Madrid.
City were unable to respond to Federico Valverde’s 22‑minute first‑half hat-trick as Álvaro Arbeloa’s team humbled the visitors at the Bernabéu. Vinícius Júnior also missed a second‑half penalty.
Guardiola was asked what chance City have of overturning the deficit in the return at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday. “Now, not much. Of course we’re going to try,” he said. “Now it’s difficult to lift our mindset, but we’ll be there, we’ll try with our people.
“I think we played quite a good game. We’ve tried to do our best. We got to the box many times and when you were able to do that it means you have followed a good process, but we didn’t score. Real Madrid has always been very dangerous but I don’t have the feeling that [Thibaut] Courtois has played a great game.
“He made a parry from Nico [O’Reilly] in the second half but we have reached that byline many times, six, seven, eight times so we’ve done a good job, we were just missing this last detail.”
Valverde’s opener came after O’Reilly failed to intervene when Real’s captain controlled a Courtois ball. Guardiola said: “Nico has measured the distance wrongly and the control was amazing.”
The manager defended a selection that featured three wide players, Jérémy Doku, Savinho and Antoine Semenyo, though the last partnered Erling Haaland up front. “I wanted them aggressive on the outside one against one, Jérémy was outstanding, we struggled a bit more on the right,” Guardiola said.
Bernardo Silva said City lost their cool. “The environment we could not control and my team let the emotions change the game,” the captain said. “We felt comfortable but after conceding the first one we lost complete control, stopped controlling transitions and second balls. When you play against Real Madrid with the quality they have you pay the price.”
Doku was more positive than Guardiola and believes City can repeat 2023’s 4-0 home win over Madrid. “Yeah, sure,” Doku said. “If we score quickly it’s a different game with the supporters, you put them under pressure. It would be crazy if I said there was no chance. Obviously they are a massive team, but we know that they scored three goals against us so why can’t we? At the Etihad, we will need our fans to put pressure [on them]. Everything is possible in football so we still believe.”
The Belgian pointed to Gianluigi Donnarumma’s second-half save of Vinícius Júnior’s penalty as offering City a lifeline. He said: “That helped us massively. We’re still confident.”
Guardiola offered encouragement in the dressing room. “He said there’s still 90, 95 minutes to play and we can’t put our heads down,” Doku said. Continue to play how we play and at the Etihad it’s a different game.”
Trent Alexander-Arnold was delighted with the victory without the injured Kylian Mbappé, Rodrygo, Jude Bellingham, Álvaro Carreras and Éder Militão. “People expected us to get battered tonight but it just shows our mentality,” the Real Madrid right-back said. “We executed the game-plan perfectly. When you get to knockout football in the Champions League anyone can beat anyone.”
Arbeloa said: “We celebrate titles in this club, we can’t celebrate victories that haven’t taken us anywhere. We are in the middle of the playoff. We have won 3-0 but if we relax a bit, we will pay for it. We have to be prepared for another battle in Manchester.”
