Manchester City will be up against both Real Madrid and their reputation on Wednesday as the Champions League’s biggest winners play one of its biggest underachievers at the Santiago Bernabeu, reports AFP.
After City’s win over Leicester on Saturday, Pep Guardiola said: “We will try to be ourselves. We can win and we can lose but we must try to be ourselves.”
Yet in some ways, City will seek a role reversal too. Madrid’s record is the envy of Europe but in particular by teams like City, whose financial might and technical talent has translated only into disappointment outside domestic competition.
In the time City have won three Premier League titles and five domestic cups, they have gone past the Champions League’s quarter-finals only once, reaching the last four in 2016, only to be beaten by Madrid.
Zinedine Zidane’s side, meanwhile, have surrendered dominance in La Liga to Barcelona but made amends for one Spanish league title in seven years by winning an
four Champions Leagues out of the last six.
Few would argue that quality explains the difference. Madrid’s success has certainly been due in part to the brilliance of Cristiano Ronaldo but City have perhaps boasted an even better all-round collection of players and their
excellence in England points to a club well-equipped to excel in Europe.
Real Madrid players pose for a photo during team’s training session in Madrid on Monday. Photo: Twitter
Guardiola has been accused of over-thinking against elite opposition too yet City’s lethargy encompasses nine seasons in the Champions League and Guardiola has only been in charge for three.
Instead, Madrid’s habit for coming through the kind of crunch games that have so often proved City’s undoing suggests each club’s identification with the Champions League has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Madrid believe this tournament is their tournament, a conviction based on historic success that makes them assured under pressure and ruthless in the decisive moments.
“When you have a history of the (Alfredo) Di Stefano period, winning five or six European Cups at that time, it means a new player that comes to Real Madrid and puts on that shirt knows ‘we have to defend our history’,” said Guardiola. “That gives them a boost because they live that history.”
When Madrid last won the Champions League by beating Liverpool in the final in 2018, their advance to the trophy seemed to rely on a number of crucial interventions falling their way.
In the semi-final against Bayern Munich, they progressed after an error from Bayern’s goalkeeper Sven Ulreich. In the quarters, they were awarded a fortuitous 97th-minute penalty to beat Juventus. Even in the last 16, they faced a Paris Saint-Germain side without the injured Neymar.
Meanwhile, UEFA slapped a stunning two-season ban on City earlier this month for overstating sponsorship income between 2012 and 2016 to breach Financial Fair Play rules and failing to cooperate once an investigation was re-opened following the leak of internal emails to German magazine Der Spiegel.
City remain belligerent and insist they will beat UEFA off the field. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport will decide their fate for the next two years.
In the meantime, Pep Guardiola's men have to finally get it right on the field to satisfy City's long-wait to conquer Europe.
Now in their ninth season of Champions League football since Sheikh Mansour's takeover transformed the club's fortunes, City are still waiting for a landmark knockout win in the competition.
Even before the latest body blow of a European ban, the City support have not been enamoured by their new status as Champions League regulars.
The club have had to turn to social media influencers to try and sell tickets for group matches and the competition's anthem is routinely jeered.
"UEFA Cartel" and "UEFA Mafia" were among the banners that greeted their first home outing since the ban was handed down against West Ham last week.
A run to the semi-finals before being beaten by Madrid in 2015/16 is their best ever showing in the competition.
A meeting with Madrid also offers City an opportunity to change the narrative.
The sort of ferocious atmosphere Guardiola has long pleaded for at the Etihad for Champions League games seems guaranteed when the Spanish giants travel to Manchester on March 17th.
With Liverpool streaking clear at the top of the Premier League, City's season and arguably Guardiola's legacy at the club comes down to what happens in this tie.
"If we don't win it everybody is going to say we are failures like the last five years," said midfielder Kevin De Bruyne. "It's something we've not won yet."
