Comeback kings Real Madrid never know when they are beat

In his last team talk instructing his Real Madrid players to aim for – and believe in – the improbable on Wednesday night, Carlo Ancelotti paused his short speech and asked them all to look at a big screen. On it was a video of key moments from the matches in which Madrid have come from behind to win this season. They had done it eight times before the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Manchester City.

Ancelotti then took his place on the touchline at the Bernabeu. He waited a long time to see any evidence that reminding his experienced, worldly, warrior squad that they are never really beaten had had any effect.

For most of the first 72 minutes in which Madrid needed to score to make up a 4-3 first-leg deficit, there was little hint of the driving energy that had, among other comebacks, erased Paris Saint-Germain’s 2-0 aggregate lead in the last-16 stage. There was barely a sign of Luka Modric and Karim Benzema combining an indomitable spirit with their technical excellence, as they had after Chelsea took control of the quarter-final, and the Madrid veterans regained it.

As for the last 18 minutes of the normal 90, the period after Riyad Mahrez had extended the aggregate scoreline to 5-3 in City’s favour, for 17 of those minutes Madrid looked more fearful of a thrashing than confident of a miracle. But for Ferland Mendy’s reflex clearance off the goal-line City would have led 6-3 overall.

But the events that then crammed into a surreal 89 seconds, from just before the clock ticked into stoppage time to shortly before stoppage time was completed, would tell a story far more dramatic than anything in Ancelotti’s motivational video.

Against PSG, Madrid had been outplayed for most of the first 150