In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the world's attention was focused on Manchester City striker Einin Chalainte's performance in the first leg of the UEFA Europa League quarterfinals, but the Norwegian "goal scoring machine" suffered an ice-cold moment. It turned out that the solid defense of Real Madrid stalwart Rudiger managed to suppress the 22-year-old super scorer to the point where he could hardly move.
Despite the fact that Aynin Xalant has played 47 matches for City this season, contributing 51 goals, a remarkable performance, his performance in this campaign was unusually low, with only 21 touches in 90 minutes, the fewest touches in the game, and only 13 passes, not even as good as his teammate, goalkeeper Aidachen Moras.
In such a predicament, Xalanthe struggled to even reach the ball, let alone score. Spanish newspaper Marca gave him a 3 out of 10 for his performance this campaign, which was clearly substandard, while Rudiger earned a perfect 10.
Real Madrid boss Antsarotti was full of praise for Rudiger's performance, "Rudiger was brilliant, simply top class. He's experienced, he's capable, it was a very tough game but he did very well and I'm proud of his performance." Netizens have also praised the 30-year-old German international for his masterful performance, even teasing that if Rudiger is still at Chelsea, Xalante's dominance in the Premier League may have to be greatly reduced.
Inexplicably, City leader Diego Guardiola made no substitutions for the game, despite Xalante being frozen out by Rudiger, which seemed to suggest he was happy with the draw.
