Champions League bold predictions: Manchester City cruise past Real Madrid, AC Milan shackle Hakan Calhanoglu

In 10 days’ time the Champions League final will be set (as always you can catch all the action on Paramount+). Before then though, we have two semifinals rich with intrigue, beginning with a rerun of last year’s clash between Manchester City and Real Madrid. That is followed by a Derby della Madonnina of such a scale as Milan has not witnessed in 20 years. Add to that an intriguing set of matches in the Europa League and Europa Conference League and the stage is set for two thrilling weeks. Here is what to look out for:
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Manchester City prove their superiority
The reigning European champions Real Madrid might just have gotten even better this season. They won’t end it with a La Liga title — Barcelona’s defensive hot streak has seen to that — but by almost every advanced metric they have improved, particularly defensively where they give up fewer expected goals (xG) and are less reliant on the heroics of Thibaut Courtois. Their young players have taken a stride forward in their development, the veterans are ageless as ever. For signs of this greatly improved side one need look no further than their Champions League campaign. No more (well at least since the first 20 minutes of Anfield) is there harum scarum quality of 2022’s how-did-they-do-that magical run to the final. In knocking out Liverpool and Chelsea they have played with the command and composure of a team that simply knows they are superior to their opponent.
They must know that that is not the case in the semifinal. Throughout the Champions League, Manchester City have made a compelling argument that this is finally their year. Of the four teams still standing at this stage, Madrid have the second best differential between their xG for and against per game at 0.86. City’s is 1.45. Pick a metric and the English champions are its gold standards. The dynamic radar below might look like one where I have cherry picked the best statistics to make my point, but you’ll just have to take my word that beyond xG I had no idea where City would rank in every one of these topics.
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Pep Guardiola’s side simply tick every single box you would want from a potential European champion. They are the Champions League’s highest scorers and in 10 games they have conceded just four goals. Barcelona have given up more shots inside the box than Manchester City in this year’s tournament… they were eliminated in November. This isn’t even a dig at the La Liga leaders, who are one of 29 teams to whom that statistic applies.
There is no obvious answer for beating City this season. It was not particularly easy in years gone by, but you could on occasion disrupt Guardiola’s men with well-deployed pressure, enough to that they simply were unable to play their way around it. Arsenal attempted that in what was billed as the Premier League’s great title showdown. They were not particularly bad at it either, but when John Stones was forced into a corner he simply launched it long to Erling Haaland, a flick on from him and Kevin De Bruyne was away to wrestle the title away from the Gunners. Guardiola, the beautiful game embodied in one coach, was getting his team to hit it long to the big lad for the other striker to run off. At long last, a win for Charles Hughes.
Madrid probably won’t press. Their passes per defensive action in the Champions League this season is 14.1, comparable with passive teams such as Dinamo Zagreb and Paris Saint-Germain. But then, you can hardly sit deep against this Manchester City side either, that merely invites wave upon wave of pressure. They can weave to the byline and cut the ball back for Ilkay Gundogan. De Bruyne or Mahrez can bend one from range. They can even wait for dead ball situations, from which they average half an expected goal per game in this competition. No small wonder when they frequently deploy four players who, at least in theory, could be center backs.
The counter argument might be that Madrid’s third way lies in simply out-possessing City. It is probably their best option but there are no guarantees that it will work, as Bayern Munich can attest. Their quarterfinal opponents allowed them to monopolise possession (56 percent in the first leg, 58 in the second) and trusted in the quartet of center backs that made up their backline to hold firm. Even against Leroy Sane, Kingsley Coman and Thomas Muller, they duly did. Vinicius Junior might represent the toughest threat City have faced in wide areas so far this season, but Kyle Walker has shown against Gabriel Martinelli, Kylian Mbappe and so many others that he can shut a flank down. John Stones and Ruben Dias, meanwhile, seem to be engaged in an ongoing tussle to prove they are the best center back in the Premier League.
Of course this remains Manchester City in the Champions League. Until they win the whole thing they will be haunted by the ghouls of Mbappe, Moussa Dembele and the one man midfield against Chelsea. This team is capable of authoring its own downfall. Indeed it might just be that City have a better chance of beating City than Madrid do.
Milan quell Calhanoglu’s threat
When the paths to the final were set at the quarterfinal stage, it seemed inevitable that it would be Napoli to emerge from this side of the bracket. They seemed a team so vastly superior to their Italian rivals that they had the Scudetto in the bag long before their first leg against AC Milan. The Rossoneri, however, were nothing if not deserving winners, setting a blueprint not just for overcoming Luciano Spalletti’s side in years to come, but perhaps for shutting down the heartbeat of Inter Milan in this crosstown semifinal.
In quelling Napoli, Stefano Pioli located the beating heart of his opponent and resolved to hit it repeatedly. Stanislav Lobotka is the midfielder who makes the Italian champions tick, the player who receives the ball off the defense and guides it towards Kvicha Kvaratskhelia et al. In the quarterfinal, however, he could not go anywhere without one of Olivier Giroud and in particular Ismael Bennacer causing all sorts of nuisance.
Lobotka fights his way around a screening Bennacer to get a pass in midfield Wyscout/UEFA
In the passage of play above, Lobotka has to fight his way around Bennacer just to get to the ball. When he does get it his first instinct is the same as ever, how can I get Napoli up the pitch? There is a sizeable patch of space for the Slovakian to drive into and zero chance that his opponent will let him get there without a scrap.
Under pressure from Bennacer, Lobotka is forced to play the short pass rather than turning and attacking space Wyscout/UEFA
Lobotka eventually worms his way into that advanced area with the help of Kvarastkhelia. His reward is to be hauled to the ground by Bennacer. That was his experience for 180 minutes and it may well be Hakan Calhanoglu’s over the coming week. The Turkish international has been a revelation in a deeper role this season, such that he has kept Marcelo Brozovic out of the side. Calhanoglu averages seven progressive passes per 90 minutes in Serie A this season, notably more even than Lobotka, whilst his eye for a long pass means he can turn possession in the center of the pitch into a shooting opportunity for Lautaro Martinez and Romelu Lukaku. If he is on form then this tie could swing in Inter’s way. Expect Bennacer to make it hellacious for Calhanoglu to show what he can do.
A mixed bag for Italian sides in the other competitions
The Milanese giants are hardly Serie A’s only representatives in the latter stages of the biggest tournaments. Indeed, this has been something of a banner year on paper for Italian football with five semifinalists across the three European competitions.
Scratch beneath the surface, however, and that number looks rather less inspiring. Inter have beaten two good but not great Portuguese opponents, AC Milan had what in retrospect might have been the easiest draw of the last 16 in Antonio Conte’s rabble of a Tottenham side, while Juventus would feel that their place is in the Champions League rather than the Europa. Meanwhile, the nature of the Conference League means that Fiorentina were strong favorites against every opponent they met. Only Roma might really feel that they have exceeded expectations in navigating their way past RB Salzburg, Real Sociedad and Feyenoord.
The reward for the Giallorossi is an extremely tough test against a Bayer Leverkusen side who, despite a recent wobble, look to be transformed under the leadership of Xabi Alonso. If anyone gets a sense of pleasure from the pain of gameplanning against the best attacks it might be Jose Mourinho, but he will have his work cut out for him trying to slow Moussa Diaby and Jeremie Frimpong down the right. Juventus are slight favorites for their tie with Sevilla but the latter have built momentum at home and in Europe over recent weeks with Youssef En-Nesyri looking particularly impressive. Massimiliano Allegri’s side, meanwhile, had been in rather underwhelming form before this weekend’s win at Atalanta. Ultimately Fiorentina, who FiveThirtyEight give an 88 percent chance of overcoming Basel in the Conference League, might be the only Serie A side to join their Milanese counterparts in a continental final.