Manchester City Beat Real Madrid, 2-1 in Champions League: Reaction & Tweets

Manchester City performed at nearly their best and it was Champions League performance to remember with a stunning 2-1 victory over Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.

It was the first time City have beaten Real Madrid and took a huge performance from a team who took the game to the 13-times Champions League winners from the start and had to recover from losing Aymeric Laporte to injury so fast in the opening half before going a goal behind not long after.

The return of one Raheem Sterling proved the push City needed as he was directly involved in Gabriel Jesus’ 79^th-minute equalizer and winning a penalty just four minutes later.

Real Madrid ended the game with 10 men after Sergio Ramos was shown a straight red card later.

All in all, an unforgettable night in the Spanish capital and perhaps the Champions League night all City fans have been waiting for.

On to the reaction-

Pep Guardiola Reaction

“I’m happy for the victory - but the performance as well to try to play against this team with a good personality,” he said.

“The first 10, 15 minutes it was very difficult, but we played really good. We conceded a goal we shouldn’t have conceded.

“After scoring we found our rhythm and we scored the second.

”Today we are happy but it’s still not over. For our people hopefully we can do a good performance.

“This club has only been to semi-final. To win at the Bernabeu is brilliant and we hope it will help us in the future to believe in ourselves.”

“There is not in the world one striker to have the intensity like Gabriel.

“He is so fast and so good - we decide to play without a proper striker because of the way they defend.

“You have to make the pitch wide - they’re so aggressive and in the first minutes we suffered, but after that we had more fluidity.

“Zidane is going to look at what we’ve done and will adapt for the second leg.”

“We see Vinicius, if he played wide, they played a 4-3-3, but if he played central, it was a diamond, and we tried to adjust accordingly. The intention was to keep as much if the ball as we can, but in the first half it was difficult.”

“Like I said yesterday, I am confident. Only thing we [as players and staff] can do is play well and win games. Hopefully the board and lawyers can convince UEFA that we did good things and not bad things.”

Kevin De Bruyne Reaction

“It’s a very good start,” he said. “We struggled in the first 15 minutes but you have to go through the storm.

”It was an even first half. We started the second half really well. Their goal came at a bad moment for us - we were dominating. Our response was brilliant. It was a beautiful goal from Gabriel Jesus.

”In four years with Pep, he sometimes surprises. Sometimes players aren’t told until the game what we need to do. There were some good and some lesser moments. In a quality game like this, you’ll struggle sometimes.

”We’re only halfway there. We have an important game at home in three weeks. Now we have to recover for Sunday’s final [in the Carabao Cup against Aston Villa].”

Notable Tweets