Champions League: How Real caged Haaland

Real Madrid made goal sensation Erling Haaland look ordinary on Tuesday in the UEFA Champions League semi-final against Man City.

The home side generally succeeded in keeping 

Haaland quiet. The Norwegian, who has scored 51 goals in 47 club appearances this season, was restricted to only 21 touches and three shooting opportunities, all of which were far from clear chances.

Real used two different approaches to manage the City striker: in the opening 30 minutes they sat deep, pinned back by City’s early dominance.

David Alaba and Antonio Rüdiger sandwiched the striker, with the former Chelsea centre back relishing the physical contest.

When passes were played into Haaland, Rüdiger nipped in to poke the ball away, or grappled with him so the striker could not turn.

After Real took the lead, their approach changed: the home side were far more aggressive without the ball. The forwards pressed up high, supported by the midfielders. The Real defensive line also stepped up, though they did not join the press.

City struggled to play into Haaland because of Real’s press. Unlike in recent matches against Arsenal and Bayern Munich where their opponents used a man-to-man press, Real retained a line of four defenders when the forwards and midfielders pressed up, so in the moments City attempted to find Haaland, the defenders were able to squeeze him and discourage passes for him to run on to.

Thibaut Courtois explained after the match how Real tried to deal with Haaland’s presence, in particular his ability to run in behind. “If you want to defend against Haaland, you don’t give him the space to run in deep to [receive] those passes that Kevin, Gundo, Bernardo [Silva] can find, so we tried to avoid that,” he said.

“As a consequence they [City] shot more from distance. City are a team who play with possession. This year with Haaland they play more direct. Sometimes in the Premier League Ederson kicks really deep. Today he almost didn’t do it. It was a different kind of game. When they had the ball we dropped down to not give them space.”