Manchester City have a three-goal deficit to recover against Real Madrid and Pep Guardiola is fuuly aware that his team are no longer expected to win the tie.
Going to the Bernabeu as favourites is rare, but this was Manchester City’s situation heading into their Champions League last 16 tie.
Unfortunately, Real Madrid delivered their best performance in quite some time, leaving Man City unable to cope in pretty much every area of the pitch.
As a result, City are now required to defeat the Spanish side by a three-goal margin next week and that is just to take the game to extra time.
Pep Guardiola knows the odds are against Man City
With Man City losing so badly on Wednesday night, Pep Guardiola has been asked about his team’s chances of progression to the next round of the Champions League.
Unsurprisingly, the manager does not think Man City are in a good position, but he has vowed that they will do what they can to turn the tide.
Pep Guardiola says Man City don’t have much of a chance of a comeback against Real Madrid in the second leg 😕 pic.twitter.com/RgFiFYOKPg
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) March 11, 2026
He said: “Right now, not much. Of course, we’re going to try. And now everything is most difficult to live our mindset, but we will be there, we will try with our people and at the end we will agree we will do better to be more active in the final third and we will try.
“I give credit to [Real] Madrid. Fantastic players, Brahim [Diaz], Arda Guler, Vincius and [Federico] Valverde of course, [Aurelien] Tchouameni, yeah.”
Man City may be tempted to divide their attention
If Man City fail to defeat West Ham this weekend, any chance of winning the Premier League title could well be all but gone.
This could cause Guardiola to think about which players he selects next week and whether it is worth prioritising one game over the other.
It would be nice to remain in the Champions League, but the chances of Man City coming back against Madrid are so slim.
With only three days between the matches, City must decide what matters more to them and then adjust to this accordingly.
