Blues plotting a simpler route to European glory...
CITY’S schedule to complete the season is starting to look clearer after UEFA confirmed the schedule for the Champions League season to be completed.
Due to the unprecedented circumstances this season, the Blues will travel to Lisbon for a 12-day mini-tournament in August if they can finish the job against Real Madrid in the last-16 second leg.
That fixture will take place on August 7 or 8 – at a venue still to be decided – before the quarter-finals begin in Portugal on August 12. The last eight, as well as the semi-finals, will be single-legged affairs with the winner progressing to the next stage.
That means the winner of this season’s competition will play two games less than every previous champion, but the coronavirus pandemic has shaken the football calendar in a way that could never have been foreseen, and this is the best solution to a difficult situation.
It could also work in favour of City, who have exited at the quarter-final stage for the last two seasons over difficult two-legged meetings with Liverpool and Tottenham respectively.
The switch to single games means City are just three games away from a maiden Champions League final, in a year where UEFA have charged them for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations and issued a two-year ban from European competition.
City will know whether their appeal against those sanctions has been successful before resuming their Champions League campaign, and the ruling should provide them with extra motivation to win the competition whether CAS rule in their favour or not. But regardless of that result, City will go into the new format knowing they have won their last 19 single-leg knockout fixtures or finals, with only one defeat in 25 of these games.
That record has helped them win eight of the last nine domestic trophies available, whereas their European record is more inconsistent when it comes to Champions League knock-out stages.
Rivals like Barcelona or Bayern Munich may be more experienced over two legs, but
City know they are a match for anyone over one game.
So a second leg against Real Madrid where a draw or win would see them through, followed by up to three one-off games, will surely give City a confidence boost in the competition they have not been able to win before.
The Blues will still have to be at their very best to become champions of Europe, but their path to that elusive trophy has just got much simpler.