Erling Haaland enjoyed a quiet night in Manchester City's Champions League semi-final first leg at the Bernabeu but could still have an impact on the outcome.
Manchester City's Erling Haaland watches Real Madrid's Thibaut Courtois
On the surface, Erling Haaland had a rather quiet game in Manchester City's draw with Real Madrid on Tuesday.
However, according to Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, Haaland's mere presence forced the Champions League winners to abandon their usual tactic and move deeper to prevent the striker from receiving his familiar serve. As a result, Courtois noted that more space was opened for City to shoot from distance, with Kevin De Bruyne and Rodri both closing in before De Bruyne scored in the second half and leveled for The Blues.
Speaking to BT Sport, Courtois said:
“We defended a little bit more but if you want to defend against Haaland you don't give him the space to go deep to find the passes that Kevin, Gundo, Bernardo [Silva] can find, so so We tried to avoid this. "As a result they shoot more. The goal comes from there, it pushes us further. They have guys like Rodri, Kevin, Gundogan who can shoot well.
"Man City is a team that controls the ball. This year with Haaland, they played more directly. Sometimes in the Premier League, Ederson kicks very deep. Today he almost did not. It's another game. When they had the ball, we backed down to not give them space.
“Although they have the quality of the ball, when we win the ball, sometimes we are too eager to get the ball quickly from deep. We didn't control the game because we were used to controlling the ball too. They press well and we shouldn't risk too much in the back."
However, with Man City having the home advantage in the second leg and scoring in class, Courtois drew on Real's Champions League experience, saying:
"There is everything to play next week. It will be like a final, I hope we can keep that in mind even if we are absent. We are good enough to win the game. final. I hope we can keep that spirit."
Courtois' appeal was echoed by Luka Modric, who explained how Carlos Ancelotti changed Real's approach in the second half to get more of the ball from City. "In the first half, we had a lot of things to fix. The coach wanted us to hold the ball more and be more creative," he said. "That's why we used Camavinga to push more often in midfield - it went well. We deserved a better result than this. But we will approach. second leg with as much confidence and optimism as possible to win there."
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