Real Madrid’s manager, Carlo Ancelotti, said Manchester City played better and deserved to win after his team’s discouraging 4-0 loss to the Premier League champions on Wednesday.
Manchester City knocked out the 14-time UEFA Champions League winners 5-1 on aggregate after drawing 1-1 in the first leg of the semi-final clash and then beating Madrid 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium.
Manchester City exacted revenge by playing brilliantly in front of their jubilant fans after losing to Real Madrid in the same round of the competition last season.
Thibaut Courtois, the goalkeeper for Real Madrid, was the only one who prevented City from causing more damage.
“They played better than us and deserved to win”, Coach Carlo Ancelotti told reporters.
“They put a lot of pressure at the beginning, it worked out well for them because they made it very difficult for us to get the ball in play and they went two goals ahead.
“From then on, it was difficult to get back into the game. We tried in the second half… but it didn’t work out”.
Even though Ancelotti admitted that it had been a difficult night, he insisted that it was still too early to pinpoint exactly what had gone wrong.
Ancelotti’s failure to get to the Champions League final and win La Liga this season came one year after the manager won the La Liga and Champions League titles, becoming the first manager to win league titles in all of Europe’s top 5 leagues.
“Evaluating today, at this moment, makes no sense”, the Italian tactician added.
“It is a defeat that hurts, it hurts a lot. But it can happen. We reached the semi-finals of the Champions League against a strong opponent, they played better and left us without a final.
“We have to learn and for the next season, to be better”.
Now that the season is nearly over, Ancelotti would have to make do with the fact that his team’s efforts this season only earned them the Spanish Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup.
