Atlético Madrid vs Man City

City ran the gauntlet in the Wanda, experiencing the gamut of the Atletico Madrid experience - and are in the semi-finals to recount the tale.

City ran the gauntlet in the Wanda, experiencing the gamut of the Atletico Madrid experience. So when Ilkay Gundogan hits the post from seven yards and has a diving header blocked two seconds later, everyone shrugs and says “Well yes, that makes total sense”. From the 20th minute until half-time, they had three-quarters of the ball and all of the control. They pressed in the final third and – more surprisingly – were successful with it. The Wanda Metropolitano is new and less characterful, but it also contains some of Europe’s best stadium acoustics. The first 160 minutes of this two-legged tie was nothing but window dressing, Diego Simeone’s team positioning themselves for a final assault and Manchester City hoping to have a lead to repel them with.

Manchester City held on through a fractious second half to draw 0-0 with Atlético Madrid and progress to the Champions League semi-final.

City had gone close from an early corner, Stones heading high, and they created the big chance of the opening period in the 30th minute. From the restart, they pushed high, bringing the aggression and they had numerous flickers in front of goal, which the home fans were ultra quick to get behind. Felipe had left him dazed and bloodied after jumping into him in a 12th minute aerial challenge, wiping him out with a ferocious upper body barge. The heart-in-mouth moments for the travelling City support continued to come. Grealish had called Savic the C-word during the melee, which led to Savic grabbing his hair. With Foden down, all hell broke loose, another Atlético defender, Stefan Savic, trying to lift him to his feet and being shooed away by Oleksandr Zinchenko, who was an unused City substitute, as everybody converged.