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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barney Ronay at the Bernabéu

Rice finds antidote to Madrid’s magic and provides glimpse of his ultimate potential

Bukayo Saka Declan Rice Real Madrid Madrid Arsenal Thibaut Courtois Martin Ødegaard Mikel Arteta
Gabriel Martinelli celebrates scoring with Declan Rice
‘The main thing for Arsenal here wasn’t so much that they beat this Real Madrid team, but they beat the ghosts too, some of them their own.’ Photograph: Lee Smith/Action Images/Reuters

Where is your magic now? As the night wore on at an increasingly sullen Bernabéu, as the latest keepers of the Real Madrid shirt tried and failed to crank their way up through the emotional gears, this felt a bit like watching a conjuring act gone wrong. Pick a card. Any card. No. Not that one. Wait. Keep your eyes on the ball. The glass. Hang on.

Such is the voodoo around Real Madrid, the white magic stuff, it had been necessary to process quite a lot of this chat in the buildup. Had Arsenal won too well at the Emirates Stadium? Was a three-goal advantage further proof of their naivety?

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