Breathless would perhaps be the best way to describe the opening five minutes of this second leg.
Not even a minute was on the clock when first-leg hero Federico Valverde was freed in behind, but with Gianluigi Donnarumma stranded 12 yards off his line, the Uruguayan’s attempted lob was mishit and gathered by the grateful City stopper.
It was soon Pep Guardiola’s men who were on the offensive, knowing they needed to overturn a three-goal deficit, twice coming close in a matter of moments when Thibaut Courtois first denied Rayan Cherki, before standing firm at his near post to repel a Rodri rocket.
City’s evening unravelled midway through the first half, though.
Vinicius Junior’s goalbound strike was blocked on the line by the outstretched elbow of Bernardo Silva, who saw red following a VAR check and saw his misery compounded when the Brazilian stepped forward from 12 yards to move Madrid four goals ahead in the tie.
Vinicius missed two more golden chances to inflict more misery on City just a matter of minutes later, with the hosts all over the place in defence, but Erling Haaland did at least hand Guardiola’s men a lifeline shortly before half-time when he reacted quickest to prod home Jeremy Doku’s deflected cross.
Madrid made a half-time change in goal as Courtois was replaced by Andriy Lunin, and the Ukrainian had to be alert twice within 10 minutes of the restart to deny Haaland as the 15-time European champions looked a little nervy.
Doku did manage to breach his resistance just after the hour when he strode clear and found the bottom corner, but the offside flag cut short his celebrations.
The biggest compliment to pay to City was that it was difficult to tell for most of the game which side had 10 men, as Cherki fired another warning sign in when he arrowed an effort just wide of Lunin’s left post.
The damage was done in the first leg for City, but they kept probing until the bitter end here, even if the offside flag denied them once more when Rayan Ait-Nouri had strayed prior to heading home Cherki’s cross.
A frantic game saw another late twist as Vinicius netted deep into stoppage time to round off an excellent last-16 tie, which saw the Spanish giants set up a quarter-final tie with what will almost certainly be Bayern Munich.
City’s search for UCL glory is over, and with the Premier League title quest also in tatters, Sunday’s Carabao Cup final now takes on added significance.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Abdukodir Khusanov (Man City)
