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Manchester City travel to Gelsenkirchen in Germany’s football mad state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Wednesday night to face Schalke 04 in the Champions League Round of 16 first leg.
City are still fighting on four fronts this season- they’ve managed to close the gap on Premier League leaders Liverpool, they face Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final this Sunday and have secured a place in the FA Cup quarter finals. However, for their fans and owner Sheikh Mansour, the Champions League is the dream and if they were only allowed to win one, it would be this.
Guardiola and his players will be aiming to win all four trophies and the two time Champions League winner spoke on his team controlling their emotions and rising to the challenge ahead of the first leg:
“We have to control our emotions, suffer the bad moments, the right moments make the difference. We’re confident. We arrive with many dreams in our heads. We want to make it hard, we want to make it strong. We want to try and score goals it’s so important.”
“At Bayern we played well in the last season. The first season we won the title but didn’t play the way we normally do. When you speak a few weeks ago when we lost at Newcastle the people didn’t say we played attractive football. I have the feeling the players will see it as a challenge for us. You can’t go through in these competitions if you’re not yourself. Sooner or later you’ll be out, here, the quarters. If you want to dream of the latter stages you have to be yourself, incredible every minute. It’s a challenge. “
City finished top of Group F to secure a place in the Round of 16, finishing five points ahead of second place Lyon, seven points ahead of Shakhtar Donetsk in third place and 10 points ahead of fourth place Hoffenheim. The points difference didn’t quite do the other sides justice, City were beaten 2-1 by Lyon in their first game and only just beat Hoffenheim 2-1 in their second game thanks to an 87th minute David Silva goal.
Schalke’s season up to now hasn’t quite gone as well as City’s. They find themselves sat in 14th place in the Bundesliga, nine points off the relegation zone but a huge 18 points off fourth place.
The Royal Blues have already lost 11 games in the Bundesliga this season, four more than the whole of last season where they finished in second place behind Bayern Munich.
Their form in Europe doesn’t match up with their woeful domestic form. They finished in second place in Group D, five points behind group winners Porto but a comfortable seven points ahead of Galatasary in third and eight ahead of Lokomotiv Moscow in fourth.
Domenico Tedesco’s side progressed through the groups despite only scoring six goals, the lowest out of the 16 sides still in the competition. The 33-year-old Italian has his side well drilled at the back in Europe and their four clean sheets in the Champions League so far can only be beaten by arch rivals Borussia Dortmund who have five. Their defensive capabilities will certainly be put to the test by Pep Guardiola’s free-scoring, clinical City side who have scored 15 goals in their last four games.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, head coach Tedesco praised Guardiola’s side whilst happily accepting the title of underdogs:
“We are the underdog, clearly not the favourite. This is obvious, but it’s nice if everyone thinks that. City have to prove they are stronger and superior to us.
We will put everything we have against them. You can compare it to facing Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. They are one of the top teams in Europe and we want to show off. We want to take our fans with us and I think we have a chance.
We know Man City are a very strong team and we will have to have our best day and prove ourselves, but, like every team, if you do something well you maybe lose a bit of the focus on something else. Maybe this is our chance.”
The two sides last met more than 10 years ago, on the 27th November 2008 in the UEFA Cup (now the UEFA Europa League) where a City side that had been bought by Mansour three months earlier, and went into the tie as underdogs, beat the Germany side 2-0 at the Veltins Arena. The Cityzens Captain Vincent Kompany is the only player from either sides squads for tomorrow night that also featured back in 2008.
Vincent Kompany (left) played in the sides last encounter back in 2008.
(Photo: Getty Images)
Schalke team news
Breel Emobolo (foot) will miss the fixture and will still be a doubt for the second leg. Benjamin Stambouli (cheekbone) , Alessandro Schopf (knee) and Steven Skrzybski (hamstring) haven’t featured in the last four games and remain doubts.
One name that many will be looking out for on the Schalke team sheet is 18-year-old winger Rabbi Matondo. Matondo is the latest young British talent to make the move to the Bundesliga in order to get top division, first team football. The 18-year-old joined Schalke in January from City, on a four-and-a-half-year contract in a deal worth 11 million euros. The Welsh international made 11 appearances for City’s under-21 team this season but never made a first team appearance. The winger made his first start for Schalke at the weekend against Freiburg and will be hoping to make an appearance against his former club on Wednesday.
Manchester City team news
John Stones and Gabriel Jesus have not travelled to Germany as both have picked up minor injuries. Stones has a groin problem whilst Jesus finished the game against Newport County at the weekend with a hamstring problem. Claudio Bravo (achilles), Benjamin Mendy (knee) and Fabian Delph also don’t feature in City’s match day squad. With Stones out, Pep Guardiola has handed an opportunity to 22-year-old centre-back Philippe Sandler who looks likely to take a place on the substitute bench as defensive cover.
