Manchester City face ‘final’ with a difference that will define their future
Manchester City face ‘final’ with a difference that will define their future
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City’s Champions League hopes hang by a thread as Club Brugge come to town and there is more on the line than just qualification for the knockout stage. Pep Guardiola has branded it a final, but not the sort to which he is accustomed. Not like in 2009 or 2011 or 2023, with the glory it brought. Or even 2021, when taking Manchester City to what was then uncharted territory for them still qualified as an achievement.
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Now the finality would bring only failure. Some thought City’s Champions League campaign would end in Munich on 31 May, perhaps against Bayern or Barcelona, not in Manchester in January against Brugge. City haven’t gone out in a Champions League group stage since 2012-13, their final season under Roberto Mancini. Guardiola hasn’t since he was a Barcelona player in 2000-01, when they finished below Leeds United.
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Now City have backed themselves into a corner. Sitting 25th when only 24 teams advance, their fate is still in their own hands because victory over the Belgian champions would at least enable them to leapfrog them. “The question is simple,” said Guardiola. “If we don't win, we'll be out. If we win, we'll go through.”.
Which, given that City are unbeaten at the Etihad Stadium in Europe since 2018, scarcely sounds an impossible task. And yet this is a side with a lone point from their last four European games, who held a 3-0 lead at home to Feyenoord and drew 3-3. Now one point will not be enough.
“We have no options – we have to win the game and if not, we're not continuing in this competition and we want to go through to give another chance to play another two games to qualify for the next stages,” added Guardiola. “So it's not a problem, it's an opportunity, a challenge.” If that was an attempt to rebrand underachievement as excitement, he has been self-flagellating. “For the reasons that we know, we are not good enough,” he said. In the wake of defeat to Paris Saint-Germain last week, he said that if City go out, they will deserve to.
