Man City aim for the big one
REVERSE ROLES: MISSION TO STOP CUP KINGS MADRID
Manchester City will be up against both Real Madrid and their reputation tonight as the Champions League’s biggest winners play one of its biggest underachievers at the Santiago Bernabeu.
After City’s win over Leicester on Saturday, Pep Guardiola said: “We will try to be ourselves. We can win and we can lose but we must try to be ourselves.”
Yet in some ways, City will seek a role reversal too. Madrid’s record is the envy of Europe but in particular by teams like City, whose financial might and technical talent has translated only into disappointment outside domestic competition.
In the time City have won three Premier League titles and five domestic cups, they have gone past the Champions League quarterfinals only once, reaching the last four in 2016, only to be beaten by Madrid.
Zinedine Zidane’s side, meanwhile, have surrendered dominance in La Liga to Barcelona but made amends for one Spanish league title in seven years by winning four Champions Leagues out of the last six.
Guardiola has been accused of over-thinking against elite opposition yet City’s lethargy encompasses nine seasons in the Champions League and Guardiola has only been in charge for three.
Instead, Madrid’s habit for coming through the kind of crunch games that have so often proved City’s undoing suggests each club’s identification with the Champions League has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“When you have a history of the (Alfredo) Di Stefano period, winning five or six European Cups at that time, it means a new player that comes to Real Madrid and puts on that shirt knows ‘we have to defend our history’,” said Guardiola. “That gives them a boost because they live that history.”
In 2018 Real saw some luck going their way, but Madrid’s coach and their players saw a refusal to give in.
“The point is Madrid never give up,” said Zidane after their lastgasp triumph over Juventus in the quarterfinals.
“We came up against a number of obstacles but we believe in the goals we want to achieve and we achieve them because we fight,” he added.
For City, that refusal to accept defeat is still to be established and with every year that victory evades them, doubts grow too.
“It’s a real, real test,” said Guardiola.
“At Real Madrid, every season, you have to go for everything and win everything,” Zidane said last summer. “And more importantly, we believe we can do it.” – AFP