Ronaldo shines, Delph injured as Real Madrid beat Man City 4

An Australian record soccer crowd of 99,382 packed the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to witness Spanish giants to inflict a 4-1 defeat on the Citizens, with most of the damage being done in an entertaining first half.

The attendance comfortably outstripped the MCG’s previous 95,446 record crowd for a soccer match for Liverpool’s friendly against local side Melbourne Victory in 2013. The 10-time European champion reveled in the atmosphere, opening up Man City with dazzling touches, flicks and clinical finishing for three goals in the first half.

Delph was replaced by Jesus Navas who came on just in time to see Karim Benzema volley Real in front from a Gareth Bale cross.

It was also reported earlier by reliable papers like the Times, that Manchester United were all but resigned to losing their goalkeeper and believe that only a u-turn equivalent to what Wayne Rooney did to sign a contract in 2010 will prevent the Spain goalkeeper from joining Real Madrid.

City pulled one back in stoppage time through Yaya Toure, who slotted in a penalty after Real captain Sergio Ramos was penalised for handball when attempting to cut off a cross from Raheem Sterling.

Manchester United target Ramos remonstrated with Japanese referee Hiroyuki Kimura that Sterling had handled the ball first.

Denis Cherychev made it four for Real when he stabbed home an Isco cross with 17 minutes left. I am really pleased with everything. “We didn’t play to the pitch and we were a little bit disjointed but we will take things away from it”.

“Every coach has his mentality and his way of making the team play”.

Fabian Delph, who signed from Aston Villa for £8million last week, made his City debut, but lasted just 18 minutes before going down with an injury.

“We knew before the game it was hard to play without three centre backs against a team with such good attackers.

We once earned €15m for two games in Japan”, previously said Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. When he does, he will start his journey that hopefully ends with a spot in Manuel Pellegrini’s starting XI to begin the season.

As is sometimes the case with these global pre-season circuses, both teams will be wearing their new change strips today. This is only our second game for quite a few of the lads and a lot of us haven’t had many minutes.