Fresh from Manchester City's loss to PSG, my post was live in Hive on Manchester City's precarious condition. Less than two weeks later they played their last match against Club Brugge(which City won expectedly) and then the draws were made. The much talked about possibility came to pass– and it is Real Madrid vs Manchester City in the Playoff for the round of 16. How sad. This is like a doomsday kind of draw.
My sympathies to both teams and their supporters.
This certainly isn't a match that we should be seeing at this stage in the competition. How can the favourites be trying to knockout each now?
Now in that my blog I said,
"But that's not the only challenge. The real heavy burden is that the Playoff matches will be sandwiched by a tough run of Premier League fixtures."
January 25 - Chelsea (Premier League)
February 2 - Arsenal (Premier League)
February 11/12 - Champions League
February 15 - Newcastle (Premier League)
February 18/19 - Champions League
February 23 - Liverpool (Premier League)
February 26 - Tottenham (Premier League)
March 8 - Nottingham Forest (Premier League)
Just yesterday, City suffered a heavy 5–1 defeat to my darling Arsenal. For the first time ever in at least seven years I didn't feel any fear whatsoever before that City match yesterday. It's because I had seen since seen the cracks in City's armoury.
Talking about cracks, something else happened in the weekend, this time in France. League leaders, PSG beat their Champions league Playoff opponent,Brest, in a league match 5–2. You are wondering how it relates to our topic here? Now Real Madrid was the very last opponent of this French club.
The coached said after the match–
"PSG are much better[than Real Madrid] collectively, we played against Real Madrid a few days ago, where we were able to impose our game and play a bit, but in this PSG team, everyone runs, everyone attacks, and everyone defends. They are serious candidates to win the Champions League."
Furthermore he added,
"[On Saturday] against PSG, we had less of the ball. And usually, when we have less of the ball, we run much more than the opponent. And I thought to myself: ‘We must have run a lot, surely more than PSG.’ Against Real Madrid, we ran 120 km, and Real Madrid ran 112 km. We had run 8 km more than Madrid. Yesterday, we ran 122.2 km, probably our best physical performance, and PSG? 122.4 km. PSG ran more than us while having more of the ball.. incredible."
Now Real Madrid were beaten on Saturday by Espanyol, 1 nil.
So it's two clubs in Madrid and City that have issues to solve within their ranks, so we can say they are meeting eachother at a time both are not at their very best. It seems a kind of even match up, then.
I'd say to both, whether you win or lose, the battle will take a lot out of you and mostly likely affect your performance in other competitions.
I consider this a case of, "as you lay your bed, so you lie on it". These two teams,set the stage for all these– both teams kept stumbling in the league phase, now it's a very painful fixture they have been rewarded with.
History says:
2016: Real knocked out City
2020: City knocked out Real
2022: Real knocked out City
2023: City knocked out Real
2024: Real knocked out City
2025: ⁉️
Well I guess Real will find a way again this time. Whilst I was preparing to write this, I came across a new perspective to the City decline, a blogger here, @nevies , made a point that we should never underestimate the effect the divorce had on Pep Guardiola, that City hasn't been doing well since that divorce. He also seems convinced that the woman had a sinister motive to her wanting out. He says All it Took was Just one Woman
What is clear is that this is going to be a very heated February for both teams and could very much impact the longevity of their managers.
Cheers
