MAN CITY v Real Madrid: The PREVIEW – City’s Probable Team
20 Nov
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21st November 1998: Man City v Gillingham in Division Two.
21st November 2012: Man City v Real Madrid in the Champions League.
Harking back to our past isn’t something I’d often do, but as our realistic hopes of progressing to the next stage of Europe’s premier competition are pretty much over, it’s worth remembering just how far we’ve come in recent years. Real Madrid, one of arguably the top two sides in the world, are travelling to Manchester to face the Blues and it’s not an over-exaggeration to say that a defeat would be disappointing.
Such is our remarkable home record, both domestically and in Europe, a City victory wouldn’t come as a shock and six points from our two remaining fixtures, combined with other results going our way, is exactly what we need if we are to advance to the knockout stage. It’s unlikely, but we’ve seen repeatedly over the past couple of seasons how the Blues will fight whilst there’s still hope, so I’d expect to see a battling performance on Wednesday night.
It will, of course, be a highly difficult challenge. We saw Real Madrid’s quality at the Bernabeu on Matchday One. City came within three minutes of recording a sensational victory but the Spaniards bossed the game and their superiority came through in the end. Since then in the group, they’ve defeated Ajax before both drawing and losing against Borussia Dortmund and need a win at the Etihad Stadium to be sure of progressing.
William Hill have some excellent odds for this match: Sergio Aguero to score the first goal is hugely tempting at 8/1 whilst Karim Benzema to score first and Real Madrid to win 4-1 is 351/1.
In terms of team selection, Gael Clichy is a doubt with the injury he picked up in the routine home victory over Aston Villa at the weekend, so Aleks Kolarov could come into the side, although the visitors would be encouraged by seeing the Serbian in the starting line-up. Pablo Zabaleta could also cover on that side, however it would mean Maicon opposing Cristiano Ronaldo.
Javi Garcia could be added to midfield to provide an extra body in shielding the defence, with Yaya Touré pushed further forward, whilst Samir Nasri could be left out if that were to happen. Mario Balotelli will hope to recover from his back injury to feature on the bench.
Here is the side Mancini could select:
Referee: Gianluca Rocchi – The will be the first team the Italian has officiated any City game. He was in charge of Barcelona’s home tie with Celtic earlier in the group stage, as well as being the man in the middle for Real Madrid’s quarter-final victory last season.
Prediction: MAN CITY 3 – 4 Real Madrid – In a game that City have to win, and with both sides possessing such quality in attack, I can see this turning into a classic. Goals to be scored by Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Angel Di Maria and Gonzalo Higuain.
Im not complaining at all, but during the time i’ve followed this site you’ve never guessed that there might be a player who scores two goals, if there is a six goal game you always think there should be six different goalscorers
I love this site though!
Citizen from Sweden
Wrooooooong! For the villa game he predicted mario to score two
) it was a rarity ha ha!
you’ve given 7 different scorers on purpose
It is time that ‘View from a Blue’ – and many City fans – woke up to the fact that Carlos Tevez sees other strikers as RIVALS: he passes to them either as a last resort or in the expectation of a return pass. For example, in the 3 CRITICAL games at the end of last season – Man U, Newcastle and QPR – Tevez completed a TOTAL of 3 passes to Sergio Aguero.
For more detailed information and a spirited discussion amongst committed Blues, see the thread “Tevez and fellow strikers” @ mcfcforum.com
People really need to wake up and smell the coffee … or the nine iron.
Tevez is what Tevez is, and he will never change. Can’t change a leopard’s spots? These spots would rival Jupiter’s.
Greedy and narcissistic. He did us well, and we were thankful, but his time has come, and he must go (actually it went a long time ago), and go he must. Player before the team? Never.
my friend,
no offense to you, but you are obsesses with Tevez’s passes. ive seem your posts everywhere. Its not Tevez fault mancini doesnt rate Dzeko…
No offence taken, xioold.
As a City supporter for 60 years and someone obsessed with our future success, I do not apologise for posting the figures as widely as possible. I do so in the hope that someone at the Club will see them and arrange a proper analysis of Tevez (on-field) behaviour using MCFCAnalytics.
Also, as a one-time ‘Tevez addict’ myself (during 2009-10), I would like to help others to overcome their addiction!
I got to agree on Tevez being selfish on passing the ball. However; time and again [despite my unconditional dislike of him] he has delivered. At this moment his good qualities make the bad ones look trivial. And as long as it continues, I guess it does not hurt to turn a blind eye for the moment.
Balotelli is the one that needs to go, not Tevez
City ‘s possibility of progression to the next round is borders none. I would love to see City give an opportunity to a couple of promising youth players in this game and keep key players fresh for Chelsea game which are doing anything but well at this moment.
re: youth players, if not for this particular game it is certainly time.
Suarez only tweets all the time/ Guidetti plenty of p.r work thru the official website/Rekik – Razak – Evans-Nimley….to name just a few. True we had hoped to use the carling cup,perhaps it would be a blessing to enter the Europa League,for them to gain experience.
Basing your judgement of Tevez on how many times he passes to Aguero is ridiculous, if you want some fair analysis, and by the way this is coming from G Neville then watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BTD0XbM0to&feature=g-vrec