What a night we had in Madrid. With the Plaza Mayor doing a brisk trade in cañas and eight euro-a-throw side plates of patatas bravas, not one of us had twigged what Roberto Mancini (and indeed the wayward child that is Manchester City) had in store for us.



As the raucous singing faded into the darkening alleyways, we made our way in a great river of humanity down the Castellano to the gravity-defying cliffs of the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. What followed will live long in the memory of both Real and City followers.

City, clearly set up in one of Mancini's we-start-with-a-point formations had an immediate surprise for us. The young Serb Nastasic would feature alongside Kompany in central defence, with Javi Garcia, Barry and Yaya blocking the way just in front of that. Quite a wall, despite the debutant's lack of big game time.

Somewhat surprisingly, the flanks were covered by Clichy and Maicon, not the world's tightest pair of full backs when on the retreat. The Brazilian in particular, after a high profile mauling from Gareth Bale in the same competition, must have been surprised to see his name on the team sheet. Ribery and Lamm had torn City's flanks to bits a year ago and a similar fate would await the two incumbents on Tuesday.

That City survived to half time without conceding was down to the heroics and acrobatics of Joe Hart, rather than a solidly functioning back-line. Time and again City were breached, Kompany maintaining his strangely unsteady start to the campaign and young Nastasic holding on grimly in the face of the swerving majesty of Di Maria and the pace and trickery of Ronaldo. To be fair to the Serb, he never looked vaguely as accident prone as Savic, but must have been wondering what kind of sadist Mancini was to launch his City career in such an uncomfortable place.

But survive we did and, as the game moved on, the towering performance of Yaya in the middle (of everything) started to take on more and more prominence. What a giant he was, for the umpteenth time in a sky blue (or in this case black and grey**) shirt, being instrumental in so much of City's most effective work both defensively and in the rare sorties upfield.

On one such occasion he put Dzeko through for the opener, nearly had one himself at 1-1 and was clearly sending palpitations through the slim body of Varane, Real's own version of the surprise rookie stopper, after Mourinho had castigated Sergio Ramos for his media pronouncements by dropping him.

Real did not look happy at the back, but we saw too few of these panic sequences because of the incredible amount of energy they put into attacking. City were pinned back as wave after wave came at us, the defenders falling deeper and deeper as the game went on.

Still there were chances, amazingly taken by Kolarov to put us back ahead, and missed crucially by Zabaleta shortly after he had joined the fun. An incredible last twenty minutes reached its climax with Benzema turning Nastasic and finishing clinically for 2-2, quickly followed by Ronaldo jinking past Zabaleta and - finding no second defender blocking his way, shooting low at goal. As Kompany inexplicably ducked, Hart was faced with one more howitzer screaming towards him and it beat him under his left side.

Credit to Real for unstinting attacking in a ferocious game that seemed twice to be slipping away from them. Their work rate never dropped, their self-belief never seemed to stutter. City also gave a good account of themselves. Not a single soul left in a tediously unnecessary stand-off with a line of the Cuerpo Nacional's top robocops could have had a complaint about the night's and indeed the trip's entertainment.

However, in the light of a similar mauling at Bayern last season, one might hazard a question or two about the choice of defenders and tactics by Roberto Mancini. Last year's opening away night defeat in Munich meant City were left playing catch-up in a difficult group right from the start. We now face the same prospect and a devilish home game with Borussia Dortmund has already graduated to the dreaded "must-win" category.

If this group of giants is not to end up producing a small hill of beans for our Blues, City's backline must keep its eye on the target: clean sheets and no more busy evenings like this for Mr Hart.

(**Note to Marketing department: we want to see City in blue when there's no colour clash with the opposition; not grey, grey and black, not maroon, sky blue)

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Email