Wednesday, February 26, 2025
HomeChampions LeagueBayern or Real: Guardiola suddenly combative

Bayern or Real: Guardiola suddenly combative

Manchester City averted elimination from the Champions League after the group stage. But the Skyblues won’t have luck on their side in the play-offs.

Manchester City were ranked 25th before the last of the eight group matches in the Champions League, which only allows 24 teams to advance to the play-off round at least. Yes, Manchester City, the 2023 CL winners, the four-time consecutive Premier League champions. The crisis-stricken Skyblues, trailing 1-0 at half-time at home to Bruges, were preparing to cause the only negative sensation of the new league phase.

As we know, things turned out differently. Pep Guardiola’s team, who needed to win to progress, went on to beat Bruges 3-1, which at least saw the Skyblues move up to 22nd place. Which raises the question: was that such a good idea?

“Both are currently better than us,” admitted Guardiola, who thinks his team is “currently not good enough” to seriously compete for the trophy. Even if the Skyblues have now largely recovered from their sporting downturn. Which is why Guardiola, who was already aggressively tackling the challenge before the Bruges game, is putting an end to the understatement.

On Sunday, the test of Arsenal awaits

“If we had to play tomorrow, it would be difficult, but in two weeks…” said the Catalan, who hopes that, among other things, Ruben Dias and Jeremy Doku will be fit to face Bayern or Real. “I don’t know what position we’ll be in then,” said the manager of the team currently fourth in the Premier League, who will face Arsenal on Sunday, cautiously optimistic. The trends make him confident.

The truth is that teams like Munich or Madrid, who have played in the Champions League, are more suited to the Citizens than Bruges, who defended uncomfortably with a very simple approach and counterattacked in a straightforward manner – and thus led at half-time in Manchester. At the end of a game that City would probably have lost a few weeks ago, but no longer. And who knows what will happen between now and February 11 or 12, when the play-off first legs take place.

“We don’t like playing against City,” one of them let slip on Wednesday evening. It was Carlo Ancelotti.

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