A Real Madrid reminder that Manchester City still seeking a winning European formula

Richard Jolly examines Manchester City's 4-1 pre-season loss to Real Madrid in Melbourne and finds a side still working out systemic failings against top competition.

Manchester City's Raheem Sterling shown during his side's 4-1 pre-season friendly loss to Real Madrid in the International Champions Cup on Friday. Jason O'Brien / Action Images / Reuters

First the Champions League, now the International Champions Cup. Manchester City's brushes with Europe's finest have tended to be dispiriting affairs. It is a pattern that has extended from northern hemisphere to southern, from Iberia to Australia. Pre-season encounters do not confer the same importance, but Real Madrid gave City an unwanted reminder of the gap they have to bridge if ambitions are to be realised.

In City's defence, their 4-1 defeat came as Real began with 10 of their strongest 11 – only James Rodriguez was absent – whereas Manuel Pellegrini fielded two rookie centre-backs and perhaps only five of his preferred team. Yet the Spanish season starts two weeks after its English equivalent so the Premier League side ought to have been the sharper. Instead, Real possessed the greater incision.

Their capacity to prove devastating was highlighted by a four-minute, two-goal salvo in the first half, as well as the identity of the scorers: Karim Benzema and the reigning World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo. Real’s well of superstars never runs dry. Their suppliers included the influential Isco, who had excelled under Pellegrini’s tutelage at Malaga and who the Chilean had hoped to take to City in 2013. This proved a chastening reunion for Pellegrini, whose sole season in charge of Real was also Ronaldo’s first at the club and yielded 96 points but no trophies.

Barcelona proved his nemesis then and have eliminated City in successive Champions League games. The other half of Spain’s dominant duo proved similarly formidable opposition. They began with a quickfire double. Benzema’s volley, following Gareth Bale’s cross, was finely judged. Toni Kroos’s subsequent pass to Ronaldo was similarly precise and, while Joe Hart got a hand to the Portuguese’s shot, it still crept over the line.

It amounted to a chastening affair for the 20-year-old Belgian Jason Denayer and 16-year-old Cameron Humphreys, although far more seasoned centre-backs have struggled against Real’s Galactico-based forward line.

They were not the only culprits as City failed at the fundamentals, leaving both Sergio Ramos and Pepe unmarked when the latter headed in Isco’s corner. After Yaya Toure reduced the deficit with a wrongly-awarded penalty, substitute Denis Cheryshev added a fourth when Gael Clichy failed to cut out the cross.

By then Ronaldo had gone off, having secured Real’s first win under Rafa Benitez. He represents the role model for wingers everywhere, a one-man example of how the raw ingredients of speed and skill can be used to create the most potent forward of his generation.

Comparisons may be invidious but there are certain common denominators with City’s record signing. They were highlighted when Raheem Sterling was pressed into service in attack. He was used as a striker at times for Liverpool last season and reprised that role. Given the primacy of Sergio Aguero in the City attack and the probability Pellegrini will only pick one out-and-out forward, it may be a short-term measure but, with Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic both probable departures, it illustrated that the £49 million (Dh278.5m) man figures as a possible alternative to the Argentine, who has not been on the trip to Australia after his exertions in the Copa America.

Sterling had a trio of penalty appeals, all rejected, but whereas Ronaldo is the finisher and the finished article, he is a £49 million work in progress, an expensive, embryonic talent. He has the skills to make him malleable, though Brendan Rodgers was too inventive when selecting him as wing-back.

Pellegrini highlighted another newcomer’s versatility by picking the debutant Fabian Delph on the left of midfield. His was not an auspicious bow. Delph was hurt and replaced within 20 minutes when the more attack-minded Jesus Navas came on. Real relished the extra room they were afforded afterwards as City reverted to 4-4-2. Systemic failings have been a theme in some of their beatings by the best, too. Once again, history repeated itself.

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