Uefa Champions league is back with the round of remaining fixtures for the Round of 16, Pep Guardiola’s Man City will face Zidane’s Real Marid in the second leg with Man city having an advantage of 2-1 which was away at Madrid and makes them the favourite to win this tie.
Many tout this to be a managerial battle between the two Managers who have a good record in this competition with Zidane leading Real Madrid to Title Glory in 2016-17 and 2017-18 back to back, While interesting fact about Pep is that he has won 28 knock out champions league matches as a manager which is more then any other manager in the competition also Man city have progressed from all 7 of their previous knockout games in which they have won away from home, So both the Managers would be hoping to turn the tides into their favour with Man City looking for their maiden European Title while Real Madrid will continue the wining momentum after their la liga Triumph.
The Fixture is set to take place in Etihad Stadium in Manchester while the major talking point remains the suspension of Madrid Captain Sergio Ramos and how it could affect the outcome of the game, the Centre Back received the Red Card late in the 86th minute of the game when Away side took the lead just prior to his suspension.
When speaking in the virtual press conference before the game night Pep was asked his opinion on Zidane and this is what he had to say.
“It’s difficult to know when you think that you’ve got one of his tactical plans covered he’ll hit you with another or revert. It is already very difficult to analyse tactics. In the dim and distant past we played the first leg and what we can remember from that we will put to good use. Since then, we’ve watched all Madrid’s games since La Liga restarted so we’ve spoken about how we think Madrid might approach this game but what we have done more is speak as a squad about how we can hurt Madrid and cause problems for them. That is what we’ve been focusing on in the buildup to this game”.
The fixture on paper and on desk seems very tactical from both the sides but Zidane’s men could go all out on this one and its going to be a tough battle for the home side to hold onto the lead.
