Manchester City are holders, but Real Madrid’s kings must still be dethroned

Blowing away Real Madrid in a Champions League semi-final second leg before their home crowd was the fantasy Manchester City made reality last spring.

The challenge for the holders is to knock the Madridistas out again at the Etihad Stadium, and after the scintillating performance of a year ago there is no sense of inferiority.

By the close of a seismic night at a jubilant Etihad Stadium Pep Guardiola’s team were 4-0 victors, 5-1 on aggregate, a step closer to the treble, and Carlo Ancelotti’s continental aristocrats were heading back to the Spanish capital shellshocked.

This was some display against the record 14-time winners, who were billed by Bernardo Silva as the “kings of the competition” on the eve of the quarter-final second leg, the tie poised at 3-3 after last week’s blockbuster encounter.

That was a contest of transitions, anathema to Guardiola’s wish for total control. Yet while he and Silva are aware of Madrid’s potency, the Portuguese points to the significance of the performance 11 months ago, in which he scored twice in the first 37 minutes.

Particularly as this followed Ancelotti’s men overturning what was a 5-3 aggregate deficit the previous year in the 90th minute of the semi-final second leg at the Bernabéu, Karim Benzema’s extra-time penalty knocking out City 6-5.

Madrid’s Federico Valverde, whose late volley achieved parity eight days ago, characterises the Etihad as his most difficult stadium to play at, owing to the fans and City’s mode of play.

Silva understands why. “We have that feeling and still have the feeling that we are very strong with our people,” he says.

“After what happened the season before when we were knocked out by Real we wanted to put things right and that performance was also a