Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti says Manchester City must not be underestimated in their Champions League playoff.
Who: Real Madrid vs Manchester City
What: UEFA Champions League
Where: Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid, Spain
When: Wednesday, February 19 at 9pm local time (20:00 GMT)
Follow media Sport’s live text and photo commentary stream of the match.
Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti says his Manchester City counterpart Pep Guardiola was deliberately underestimating the English side’s hopes of reaching the Champions League last 16.
European champions Madrid hold a 3-2 lead on City, who have struggled this season and are fourth in the Premier League, in advance of the playoff round second leg on Wednesday at the Santiago Bernabeu.
After thrashing Newcastle 4-0 on Saturday, Guardiola said English champions City have only a 1-percent chance of knocking out the record 15-time European Cup winners.
“He does not truly think that, I’ll ask him before the game – do you really think you’ve got a 1-percent chance?” Ancelotti told a news conference on Tuesday.
“He really thinks they’ve got more chance than that … we don’t think we have 99-percent chance.
“We think we have a small advantage that we have to take advantage of, and try to play the same game we set up in the first leg, which went well.”
Guardiola won three LaLiga titles and two Champions League crowns in his time with Real’s archrivals in Spain, Barcelona.
This campaign has marked the greatest, and perhaps first, true struggle of his managerial career.
“This season the reality is we have been miles, miles away,” he said. “The results have been poor.”
Guardiola has never failed in 16 seasons of coaching — four at Barcelona, three at Bayern and nine in Manchester — to take his team to the last 16. The 2012-13 season was the last time City did not play at that stage.
Madrid got the better of City in the quarterfinals last year, and with a 3-1 win in extra time in the semifinals in 2022. Each time Ancelotti’s team went on to win the title, extending the club’s record to 15 Champions League trophies.
Ancelotti also reiterated his frustration with Spanish refereeing, following some controversial decisions which went against his side in recent LaLiga matches.
Ancelotti said he was more comfortable with refereeing in the Champions League.
“Statistics speak for themselves, in Europe, there’s less controversy in this sense, there are less VAR interventions,” said Ancelotti.
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