According to former Manchester City player Joleon Lescott, Real Madrid’s belief that they can always overturn a Champions League deficit came back to haunt them on Wednesday.
In the Champions League last year, Real Madrid upset Manchester City with two goals in stoppage time from Rodrygo and the winning goal in the aggregate in extra time from Karim Benzema.
However, on Wednesday, Real Madrid lost the semi-final 4-0 on the road (5-1 overall), so there were no such heroics.
Lescott thinks that while Manchester City played with greater urgency, the Los Blancos may have expected a comeback to occur naturally.
Speaking to BT sports, Lescott said:
“You saw a team that was playing to get to get their first Champions League title versus a team who were relying on their history in the competition,”
“Manchester City took their chance devastatingly, Madrid thought that they could comeback again like they did last year”.
This season, Manchester City has simply been the superior team across all competitions, leading the race for the Premier League title as Real Madrid has already lost the title to Barcelona in La Liga by a significant margin.
In the second leg, they were superior in every part of the field, and Pep Guardiola’s tactical strategy did wonders to prevent the visitors from building momentum.
City will now face Inter Milan in the final, while Madrid will be see out their remaining three La Liga fixtures.