FOOTBALL:
RAPHAEL VARANE believes it will be team-mate Karim Benzema who is the key man in Real Madrid’s Friday night clash with Man City.
The French defender (below) knows Raheem Sterling will be a major threat but is adamant his compatriot Benzema is the main danger.
City lead the round-of-16 tie 2-1 after February’s first leg in Spain.
But the job is far from done against a side packed with talent and spearheaded by the sharp-shooting Benzema.
Varane said: “Sterling is a dangerous footballer.
“We need to stop him and that was not easy in the last game because of his actions near the area.
“But Benzema will be decisive in
MUNICH was the scene of the crowning glory of Frank Lampard’s playing career for Chelsea.
He ended up as the club’s all-time leading scorer but lifting the Champions League trophy after beating Bayern in their own back yard in 2012 put him among the game’s elite.
Lampard scored one of the spot kicks in the shootout that night and is hoping to perform a similar miracle as boss in the Allianz Arena.
Bayern hammered Chelsea 3-0 at Stamford Bridge in the first leg of this Champions League last-16 tie in February.
It is going to take a masterstroke to overcome such a deficit but in Lampard, Chelsea have a boss who can make
Manchester. In the last phase of La Liga he was enormous, and now against City he is key for Real Madrid.
“If Karim scores then we will pass into the following round.
“He is our leader in attack.
“The City defenders will not be calm for the match.”
Real were second in La Liga behind rivals Barcelona when they last met City, but come into this match after becoming Spanish champions for the 34th time.
Varane added:
“This title was very emotional for us.
“The squad were hurt by the defeat in the Bernabeu but still we have another 90 minutes and this match is very open.” his players believe anything is possible.
Conor Clifford learned that up close and personal.
A decade ago the Dubliner (below) scored the goal that clinched the FA Youth Cup for Chelsea. He was one of the rising stars and Lampard was always on hand to offer advice.
And it was how he worked in training that spoke volumes. Clifford said: “When we did 11 v 11s he would ask why certain things were done.
“You knew he had it in him to be a boss.
“He is someone as a young player who doesn’t let you down.
“I can only imagine what it’s like for the young players now, having that feeling that he trusts them.”
IT’S 50 years since Francis Lee scored the goal that won Manchester City their only European trophy.
The former England striker reckons it’s about time his old club had some new heroes.
Lee, 76, was at his peak when his penalty against Gornik Zabrze claimed the European Cup Winners’ Cup for City in Vienna. As skipper
CHELSEA need the miracle of all miracles when the Champions League returns this week. Manchester City need to beware a cast of unlikely heroes in the biggest club tournament in football. Frank Lampard (below) saw his team lose 3-0 at home to Bayern Munich in their last-16 first leg match just before lockdown.
Nobody gives them a hope of turning the tie around; not even with the memory of astonishing comebacks by Liverpool and Spurs last season. A 4-0 victory away in Munich against the formidable German champions would trump even those spectacular achievements.
The task for Manchester City, in contrast, is to avoid complacency after their impressive 2-1 win in the first leg away to Real Madrid.
Progress to the quarter-finals looked certain then, but Real are transformed since the resumption of football after the pandemic, winning the La Liga title in Spain.two young Brazilian attackers have helped to revive their fortunes,vinicius Junior and Rodrygo.
One of them is likely to face City, perhaps both, in a match where Real have to play on the front foot – and they are livewires who each cost £40million to sign as teenagers.
Rodrygo scored a goal within a minute on his league debut and notched a hat-trick in the Champions League against Galatasaray.there is equal venom in the boots of Vinicius.
If they do progress City will find themselves in the considerably tougher half of the draw for final stages of the Champions League to be staged as a mini-tournament in the neutral venue of Lisbon, with quarter-finals and semi-finals as one-off matches.the draw would see City play Juventus or Lyon in the quarterfinals and, more than likely, either Bayern Munich or Barcelona in a semi-final. On the other side of the draw are four clubs who have never won the tournament – Atalanta, RB Leipzig, Paris
Tony Book raised the trophy, it was the crowning glory of the club’s most fabled period, until Sheikh Mansour’s takeover in 2008 gave City a team good enough to qualify for the Champions League in 10 successive seasons.
And Lee believes that Pep Guardiola’s side can eclipse the great team built by Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison.
He said: “I think City have got a team good enough to win the European Cup, but I thought the same thing about the side I played in.
“Our team had won the league, the FA Cup and then the League Cup, so winning a European trophy was the final challenge. When we won the