Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola struck a defiant tone after watching his side suffer a crushing 3-0 defeat to Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie, insisting his team will bounce back despite the mountain they now face.
“Now everything is more difficult in our mindset, but we’ll be there. We’ll try with our people at the end, we agree we can do better to be most active in the final third and we’ll try,” the Spaniard said after Wednesday night’s clash at the Santiago Bernabéu.
Guardiola, who has faced Real Madrid 29 times in his career winning 14 matches, could at least take some comfort from avoiding an even heavier defeat when Gianluigi Donnarumma saved a penalty with little more than 30 minutes remaining.
“I didn’t feel powerless,” Guardiola added, showing characteristic resolve despite his team’s struggles.
Real coach Alvaro Arbeloa celebrated a performance that provided welcome relief in a rollercoaster season.
The two-time Champions League winner as a player has enjoyed a promising run since taking over from Xabi Alonso in January, but has also endured spectacular falls against minnows Osasuna and Getafe.
Uruguay’s Federico Valverde proved the hero of the night, scoring as many goals in the first half as he had in his previous 75 Champions League appearances combined.
“I don’t know if in the end he’s going to end up hating me because of how annoyingly I’ve been nagging him about trying to convey how important he is to the team,” Arbeloa said.
Valverde’s first hat-trick of his career left City with a daunting task ahead.
The Premier League side side began brightly, but were caught out by Madrid’s pace on the break. From a swift move following a goal kick, Thibaut Courtois released Valverde down the right, who rounded Gianluigi Donnarumma to open the scoring in the 20th minute.
Seven minutes later Vinicius Jr made a great run from the left and fed Valverde, who beat the offside trap and drilled home.
Madrid struck again in the 42nd after another rapid counter. Vinicius surged forward and Brahim Diaz clipped a pass into Valverde’s path, the Uruguayan completing his treble with a fine volley after flicking the ball over a helpless Marc Guehi.
City pressed after half time but it was the hosts who wasted a great chance to deal another blow when Donnarumma denied Vinicius from the penalty spot after the goalkeeper brought down the Brazilian inside the box.
Also on Wednesday night, Arsenal’s eight-game winning run in the Champions League came to an end as they needed an 89th-minute penalty from substitute Kai Havertz to rescue a 1-1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen.
Former Leverkusen player Havertz converted the late spot kick to cancel out Robert Andrich’s 46th-minute header for the hosts, marking the first time this season that quadruple-chasing Arsenal had fallen behind in Europe’s elite competition.
The Premier League leaders, who had won all eight of their previous matches to top the table after the league phase, were toothless in attack despite hitting the woodwork in a bright start, and could not find a way back into the game until their late penalty, awarded for a foul on Noni Madueke.
Holders Paris St Germain carved out a clear advantage against Chelsea as substitute Khvicha Kvaratskhelia inspired them to an exhilarating 5-2 first-leg victory at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday.
Luis Enrique’s side twice went ahead through Bradley Barcola and Ousmane Dembele but were pegged back each time by Malo Gusto and Enzo Fernandez, only for Vitinha and Kvaratskhelia, with a double, to add three late goals for the hosts.
Another stellar display on their artificial home turf at the Aspmyra Stadium gave Norway’s Bodo/Glmit a 3-0 win over Sporting Lisbon.
The Norwegians’ Cinderella winning run in the Champions League extended to five victories in a row as Sondre Brunstad Fet converted a penalty that he won on the half-hour mark, and Ole Didrik Blomberg followed up with a superbly-placed finish from a tight angle in first-half stoppage time.
The Portuguese side had a good chance early in the game but after that the home side took over, and they could have gone three up in the 55th after the ball pinged around in the box before eventually going out of play, with Bodo defender Jostein Gundersen heading the resulting corner straight at the keeper.
Danish striker Kasper Hogh rounded off another fairytale effort, stealing between two defenders to deftly steer the ball into the net from close range in the 71st minute.