In the last 3 seasons, the match between Real Madrid and Manchester City deserves to be the super classic of European football. The two seasons of Real champion, they all have to eliminate Man City on the way to glory. Alternating in the middle of that, in 2023 when The Citizens lifted the trophy, they also had to eliminate the Los Blancos before lowering the Inter notes in the final.
In the past few months, Real Madrid and Man City have encountered injuries, especially the defense. Real Madrid currently does not have the service of many pillars, while looking at the 1-5 defeat against Arsenal, fans can understand how bad Man City's defense is.
The defense of the visitors tonight has no service of Dani Carvajal, Eder Militao, Antonio Rudiger and David Alaba. All 4 pillars are injured with different levels. The person who can return to the nearest is Alaba but also takes 3 weeks. Both Rudiger and Alaba were unable to participate in two play-off matches with Man City.
Meanwhile, with Man City, it was only the loss of Rodri because of the ACL injury that made them struggling for a long time, losing their own competition to protect the Premier League throne. In recent matches, Pep Guardiola's defense has never felt so easy to be drilled. In addition, the midfielder cannot support defense or physical drowning, the overall Man City is not much better than Real.
The match against Leyton Orient in the fourth round of the FA Cup shows that Man City players are still rich in fighting spirit but not enough professional quality. They held a lot of balls but could not control the game well.
"The situation of the team is quite unstable now. We have a lot of injuries, so the victories like this made me very proud," Pep shared after the victory over Leyton.
In the last 23 matches, Man City won only 8. Losing to Arsenal was not because of unlucky, simply the defense The Citizens was overwhelmed by the "Gunners". Preparing to face Real Madrid's super attack quartet, whether Etihad is not having to witness a nightmare.
Real Madrid started the Champions League this season very hard and had to rely on the final matches to grasp the play-off ticket. The recent form of Los Blancos is unstable but in the Champions League, they have never been underestimated. Maybe at Etihad tonight, Carlo Ancelotti and his students will always decide the situation of this play-off match.
Different from the previous seasons, the competition between Man City and Real Madrid this time will witness which team has more crisis. For Man City alone, if they cannot go far, even winning the Champions League this season, they will not have a psychological pedal to prepare for the penalty of more than 100 allegations of financial violations that are hanging on the upper floating on the suspension on head.
Without the last minute, Man City will have the trio Manuel Akanji, John Stones and Ruben Dias for this great battle. This is the turning point that determines the destiny of the whole season with Pep and the students.
