The UEFA Champions League is back and the first leg of the quarterfinals bought with it eight goals, two red cards and plenty of brilliant moments. With so much happening, ESPN India attempts to pick out the one moment that we feel defined the mid-week UCL action.
For the first mid-week back, we pick Rodri's fantastic opener for Manchester City vs Bayern Munich at the Etihad.
The clock reads 26:50 in the first leg of this UEFA Champions League quarterfinal. The score, Manchester City 0-0 Bayern Munich. At this exact moment, if we freeze everyone on the pitch and ask people what's coming, the near-unanimous inclination would be to say: 'he's going to pass it sideways, a little behind him, to Kevin de Bruyne.'
You see the man with the ball is Rodrigo Hernandez Cascante, or Rodri as he's normally known, and this is what he does when he gets the ball anywhere near the opposition penalty box (or indeed anywhere else on the pitch). As the main defensive midfielder for Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, he plays a key but predictable role in possession -- pass it sideways, play it simple, keep it moving, be the metronomic fulcrum of the passing carousel that is Pep-ball.
In fact, he's there at the very start of this move, doing his day job: mopping up and getting on with it. The clock reads 26:20 when Ruben Dias times an excellent tackle to stop a mazy Leroy Sane dribble. The ball bounces out of that challenge and into the feet of Rodri, who almost immediately turns and plays De Bruyne into space near the centre-line. With Bayern having enough men back, City don't counter at any great speed and by the time Rodri gets the ball back it's 26:34 and he's about fifteen yards outside the Bayern box, dead centre. Here, he does the Rodri-move™ and makes another instant half-turn and pass, into the feet of Bernardo Silva down the far right. This is Guardiola's City at their best, stretching the opposition, pulling them from one side to the other, staying patient, Rodri acting as a conduit for the flair players to do their thing.
Bernardo toys with Alphonso Davies and Leon Goretzka in that inimitable style of his before recycling possession backwards, towards John Stones. Stones, playing as a second defensive midfielder alongside Rodri in Guardiola's new-fangled 3-2-4-1 formation (on the ball), pings it straight back to Bernardo. He in turn takes a touch and passes it sideways to Rodri before setting off in anticipation of a quick return ball. Inside him, at the edge of the box, Ilkay Gundogan does the same, expecting the simple ball into the inside-right channel. Also expecting a pass into feet are Erling Haaland right in front of him, Jack Grealish to the front and left and of course, De Bruyne slightly behind him to the left.
This is where we freeze it. This is where we ask what's coming. This is where everyone says he's going sideways.
Except this time, he doesn't.
WHAT A GOAL FROM RODRI TO OPEN THE SCORING AGAINST BAYERN! �� pic.twitter.com/gTBaQozHXn
- ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 11, 2023
A heavy first touch cancels out any idea of a first-time pass but Rodri salvages it with a brilliant drag-back that sends a furiously back-tracking Jamal Musiala down the wrong street. The drag-back has suddenly opened up space in the centre, five or so yards off the D.
Joshua Kimmich is the first to realise that something's off, but he's too late with his attempt at closing down. With one touch Rodri gets it out of his feet, with the next he smash-curls it sensationally into the top corner, with his weaker left foot. He hits it so powerfully that both his feet leave the ground for a moment. Yann Sommer, in the Bayern goal, can do nothing but stare at it as it whizzes past him.
26:54, Manchester City 1 - 0 Bayern Munich.
Exactly 34 seconds after he had started the move with that trademark simple forward pass, Rodri had finished it with a wholly uncharacteristic flourish. As debut Champions League goals go, few have come in more spectacular fashion.
It's this ability to blend the predictable (almost monotonous) efficiency with the out-of-nowhere pieces of magic that have made Manchester City the outfit they are. Rodri's opener on Tuesday night was a perfect example of the latter.
City would go on to win 3-0, seizing firm control of the tie. And the moment that started it all came from one of the most unexpected sources of all.