Pep Guardiola said Ederson was Manchester City’s best player as he defended the goalkeeper’s decision before Real Madrid’s second goal.. Ederson made a number of excellent saves to keep Real at bay in the game before being beaten by a shinned effort from Kylian Mbappe that looped horribly into the net. City rallied and retook the lead thanks to an Erling Haaland penalty, but Real pounced late on when Ederson went long and the ball came back twice as fast, and he could only parry into the path of Brahim Diaz.. Six minutes later, Vinicius jumped on a loose ball back from Mateo Kovacic and beat Rico Lewis to it before poking the ball past Ederson for Jude Bellingham to tap into an empty net. It meant an evening of such promise ended on a flat note for the Blues, with Guardiola not sugarcoating the night for a team that made too many mistakes.. For all his issues with the decision-making though, Guardiola defended Ederson when asked about his call before Brahim’s goal. As well as calling him City’s best player, he said that a different action could have produced the same outcome.. “Eddy decided to play a long ball, it was not a good kick and they scored,” said Guardiola. “Maybe we played short and they scored and you say play long.. “Players take a decision in the moment – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t but it’s not today, it has happened many times. Reflect and think and maybe in the future it will not happen and be brave for the next games.. “The previous games, the way we played we had to win for a big margin and it didn’t happen. Today was tighter. Madrid had chances and played good with the ball when in the past it didn’t happen. In the moments that we should have the situation we could not manage it but we arrived in the last minuets with a good result and we could not keep it.”
