Erling Haaland’s disappearing act came at the worst moment for Man City

On a night of fine margins and Madrid mastery, City’s striker became world football’s most conspicuous ghost

April 18, 2024 7:46 am(Updated 8:00 am)

ETIHAD STADIUM — Pep Guardiola’s brilliance may not stretch to penalty shootouts. Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne, Manchester City’s two best penalty takers, sat on the bench as Mateo Kovacic and Bernardo Silva missed to cede the advantage and then the quarter-final. There will be no Double-Treble. There will be no European dynasty.

There’s nothing quite like the noise of a home crowd accepting a penalty loss in bad grace, all clattering seats and groans and then stunned silence. In front of the Etihad’s press box, where Spanish colleagues foolishly decided to celebrate with some gusto, south Manchester snarls sent them back to their seats. Not now, guys.

City deserved their misfortune, or at least Real Madrid merited their sweet passage through. You can talk about chances, and we will, but monumental ties are decided on nerves. Their final four penalties, after Luka Modric’s miss, were majestic. Ederson is rarely helpless; he barely got close.

A year ago, Madrid lost 4-0 in this stadium and we wondered if Carlo Ancelotti’s time as the Don of this family had passed. They were gutsy and gritty in Manchester, playing a version of Diego Simeone’s El Cholismo, although they won’t like the comparison. Breaking things up and breaking at speed – and succeeding. Dani Carvajal spent six minutes on the floor and others followed suit to ease accumulated pressure.

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For 72 minutes, Manchester City passed and passed and created mid-quality chances because that’s what happens when very good attacks meet very good defences. A Champions League exit loomed uncomfortably in their psyche because of fine margins: bar hit, chance scuffed off knee.

The second leg had been the opposite of the first in Madrid’s indoor cauldron: chaos with controlled shooting followed by controlled build-up with inexact finishing. Real had the lead because of another opposite. The first half was a lesson in expected goals; Real scored their one big chance and City missed plenty of little ones.

Then, the story was Erling Haaland as world football’s most conspicuous ghost. Haaland completed two passes in the first 45 minutes and missed presentable chances that pockmarked the night. When he’s not playing well and City are in that passing whirl that takes place between 40 and 20 yards from their opponent’s goal, Haaland spends an awfully long time watching the same thing as us but from a different angle, like a ludicrously expensive PlayerCam.

There is such a thing as too much control, or at least control in the areas in which you can persuade yourself that you’re probing and pushing but the opposition barely feel the bruising around the ribs.

What Manchester City needed was an agent of chaos, a mad inventor on the wing who might make two daft machines that blew up but would then produce something so sublime that it made you gasp. Enter Jeremy Doku.

Doku has enjoyed a season so varied in its production that Manchester City supporters are basically unwilling and unable to make any conclusion at all. He began in a glorious haze of dropped shoulders and curled finishes, appearing readymade for English football, and then waned just as quickly. He did simple things badly until you wondered whether he might have forgotten to do them at all.

If that made Doku a roll-the-dice winger, the yin to Jack Grealish’s run-stop-pass-backwards yang, he had the perfect stage: nothing to lose, licence to thrill, a right-back in Carvajal on a yellow card. He dragged the tie towards City through his directness and sheer unpredictability. His dribble and shot produced the only black mark on a magical night for Andriy Lunin.

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But Real Madrid survived, survived because they are so used to surviving in these circumstances and survived because the initial Doku flurry that so spooked Real Madrid faded into fog again. Carvajal steadied himself after the glancing blows, an extra midfielder dropped in to help him and City were thwarted. The difficulty with the chaotic winger is that teams are tempted to keep trying to feed him the ball and hope.

The line between success and failure is microscopically thin and blurry. Bernardo might have taken a penalty even if Haaland and De Bruyne stayed on, and will never take a worse one. Doku could have come on earlier and forced a win in normal time. Haaland could have stayed on and done more than the ineffective Julian Alvarez. What ifs are the quickest route to madness.

And so, improbably, this became the night of a Ukranian reserve goalkeeper who only has 11 caps for his country and who has only played 28 league games for Madrid. Of Jude Bellingham, who got the treatment and stood taller than all. Of Ancelotti, the old master who has taken down the European champions and favourites. City will be back. Real Madrid never quite seem to go away.