Manchester City’s season has started off in similar fashion to how the last season ended – firing on all cylinders in the league but struggling in the UEFA Champions League. They have six wins and one draw in their amazing start to the league campaign, equalled only by Liverpool. However, the start of their Champions League fixtures ended in misery as they lost 2-1 to Lyon at home.
Pep – We must win each game
With five games remaining in the group stages of the Champions League, manager Pep Guardiola declared: “We have five finals now. We lost the first game, so now we must win each one — tomorrow is the first final.”
Manchester City currently lie bottom of the Group F table, with Lyon, Hoffenheim and Shakhtar Donetsk all having points on the board. This evening City have the chance to make up for their early stutter, if they can beat Hoffenheim away from home.
Bet on Hoffenheim vs Manchester City with bet365
Hoffenheim’s first ever home game in Champions League
Hoffenheim have not qualified for the Champions League group stages before and this will be their first ever home game in the competition, so the fans and players should have some additional motivation from that. Last season it was Liverpool that prevented them from progressing into the competition, beating them in the qualifying stages. That story will sound familiar to Manchester City, who were also knocked out of the competition by Liverpool, in the quarterfinal stage.
City’s best run in Champions League was reaching the semi-final in 2015/16
Whilst City have enjoyed tremendous domestic success in recent years, the Champions League has been the competition that they have struggled in. The closest they have come to success is when they reached the semi-final in 2015/16 where they lost to Real Madrid. Now they will be hoping that they can finally transfer their terrific form in the Premier League to compete with Europe’s finest, starting with these five games in the group stage.