ROBERTO MANCINI stepped out into the historic Bernabeu last night knowing that he was embarking on the next and most testing stage of his career, the one that will determine whether the acquisition of domestic league titles represents the extent of his managerial talent.
No one can take away his claim to have been the man who guided City to the English championship after a wait of 44 years. But if you want your club to win the European Cup, which must be the ambition of a club with City’s resources and recently acquired status, the evidence up to this encounter suggested that he might not be your man.
His three Serie A titles with Internazionale turned out not to be the platform from which to launch a bid to recapture the Continent’s club championship. Two consecutive eliminations at the quarter-final stage were followed by two in the last 16, again back to back. Last year with City the failure to make it beyond the last 32 added a new low point to a graph of steady decline in his personal performance.
For a few minutes it seemed as though the goals scored by Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov during the second half – two strikes that threatened to add a new layer of meaning to the phrase “against the run of play” – might mark a decisive change in his fortunes. But the replies from Marcelo, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo rendered that an open question to be answered in the coming weeks.
As if this encounter had not already seemed an enticing prospect, the managers of the Spanish and English champions chose to spice the occasion with selections that appeared to throw caution to the winds, particularly when they both ditched battle-hardened centre-backs in favour of teenaged novices for this first match of the Champions League season.
Mancini replaced the 30-year-old Joleon Lescott, who has looked shaky this season, with Matija Nastasic, a 19-year-old Serb acquired from Fiorentina during the summer in exchange for Stefan Savic plus €18.7m, and now making his first appearance in a Manchester City shirt.
Jose Mourinho’s decision to leave out Sergio Ramos, a 26-year-old with 300 appearances, in favour of the Frenchman Raphael Varane, another 19-year-old, acquired from Lens a year ago and barely a dozen appearances into his Real Madrid career, smacked of a big voice in the dressing room being temporarily silenced.
But Mancini had nothing on his team sheet to match the surprise sprung by his opposite number when Mourinho named Michael Essien, acquired on a free transfer from Chelsea, where injuries were thought to have put an end to his useful life, to play in a central position behind the striker, where Luka Modric had been expected to replace Mesut Ozil. Those two playmakers were left among the substitutes, together with Karim Benzema, Kaka and Fabio Coentrao, the quintet representing an investment on Real’s part of more than £199m.
As shocks go, the decisions by Mancini to leave Mario Balotelli out altogether and to prefer the newcomer Maicon at right back in place of Pablo Zabaleta and Kolarov were hardly in the Essien-for-Modric class, although, along with the presence of Javi Garcia alongside Gareth Barry at the base of midfield, allowing Yaya Toure to push forward, it certainly gave City a slightly different look.
Holding Mourinho’s team to a 0-0 score at half-time represented a minor triumph, given the preponderance of possession enjoyed by Real and the several chances that went begging thanks either to Joe Hart’s athletic saves or wayward finishing.
In the first dozen minutes Hart twice flung himself to save brilliantly from a clearly energised Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese forward prompted on the first occasion by Xabi Alonso’s stiletto of a pass and on the second by a sweeping ball from the busy Angel Di Maria.
Hart, who could have done better on two of the goals, was also in evidence a few minutes later when he hindered Gonzalo Higuain’s clumsy attempt to get his boot to a bouncing ball, after which Sami Khedira blasted the loose ball over the bar from an excellent position.
At the end of the half Higuain should have done better with a volley from Di Maria’s looping diagonal ball.Before the interval City had created two good chances on the counterattack, both prompted by Toure’s strong running out of midfield. First the Ivorian held off Essien, who had drifted deeper as the match went on, before guiding a ball final just a yard too far ahead of Samir Nasri.
Then his burst created a three-on-two advantage as City’s forwards closed on the Madrid penalty area, only for David Silva to turn inside on to Toure’s pass and delay his shot sufficiently for Xabi Alonso to make the block.
Of the young centre-backs, Nastasic came closest to paying the price of his inexperience when he chased back with Higuain 10 minutes into the second half and put insufficient weight on his touch back to Hart, forcing the goalkeeper into a rushed and risky clearance.
As for Carlos Tevez, required to act as a one-man front line 10 days short of the anniversary of the day he refused to warm up as a substitute against Bayern Munich, there was nothing but the very infrequent scrap upon which to satisfy his seemingly reawakened appetite for the task of representing Manchester City.
