Bernardo Silva Borrows Erling Haaland Skills To Send Man City To Champions League Final

Bernardo Silva produced an Erling Haaland-esque goalscoring display as Manchester City defeated Real Madrid 5-1 on aggregate to reach the final of the UEFA Champions League.

Silva is far from a Haaland clone, but the versatile attacking midfielder showed goalscoring instincts of which the prolific Norwegian would be proud.

If these players were in a set of stacking dolls, Haaland would be the biggest and it would be a while before you found Silva.

Real Madrid had trouble finding him, too, as he sneaked behind its midfield alongside its defence, almost as if he had disguised himself as one of them.

It was a key manoeuvre in the battle for spaces, and City was more than up to the challenge of finding the limited room from which to win the tie.

Real, on the other hand, had around half a pitch with which to work thanks to City’s high defensive line. The problem was the Real players couldn’t get the ball in behind it often enough.

The spaces for City were much smaller, and as Silva found that area within opposition territory for the first goal, just as important was Kevin De Bruyne being able to get the ball to him in it.

If anyone can, De Bruyne can, and in the end, it was one of his easier assignments. He fed a perfectly weighted pass to Silva who took it in his stride, and showed composure having found a relatively large amount of time to think about what to do—ie seconds rather than milliseconds.

He gave Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois the eyes looking to the far post before nestling the ball inside the near post. It was an emphatic left-footed finish—another Haaland trait.

Courtois had previously saved well from two Haaland headers to keep his team in the game, the second of which was particularly impressive.

Silva himself rarely scores headers but had done so against Bayern Munich in the quarterfinal, set up by Haaland no less, and added another here to put City on course for the final in Istanbul.

It was instinctive goal-poaching work from the 28-year-old who was in the right place at the right time to capitalise after Ilkay Gundogan’s shot deflected up off Eder Militao, asking to be headed home.

Real changed up their approach about 20 minutes into the first half. Instead of trying to punt the ball over the City defence, they started trying to work through it by playing out from the back more.

Going long had just been returning the ball to City, and the home side had enjoyed more than 80% possession for much of the first half.

There was one particular moment when Luka Modric found himself with the ball in midfield, carried it around a bit, but could find none of his ten teammates available for a pass.

City’s stifling of Real eased off somewhat in the second half when the Spanish visitors and current cup holders enjoyed some possession.

Enjoyed might be the wrong word given how suffocating City’s press was, but Real had some of the ball nevertheless. Sometimes even in the opposition half.

The best chance of the half to that point still fell to Haaland, though, but the goalscoring phenom was again thwarted by a top save from Courtois who was able to knee the effort over the bar.

The tie was sewn up for City shortly after anyway, as a De Bruyne cross was met by Manuel Akanji and deflected in off Militao.

City began resting key players, but the energetic Silva remained on the pitch. He showed his versatility, dropping into midfield in place of Gundogan while substitute Riyad Mahrez took Silva’s previous position on the right.

Two other substitutes combined when Phil Foden fed a pass to Julian Alvarez to add a fourth on the night to make it 5-1 on aggregate.

City is in a good place going into this final as it looks to win its first-ever Champions League trophy, and the player who found the best places to make a difference in this game will be key once again if it is to do so. Maybe he’ll be joined on the scoresheet by Haaland next time.