Face-off in Madrid is City's most demanding game yet

The perfectionist is aiming to be almost perfect. Manchester City have been wildly imperfect this season; it is why they think they are on the brink of their earliest Champions League exit since Roberto Mancini's reign.

- RICHARD JOLLY

Pep Guardiola won 6-2 on his first trip to the Bernabeu as a manager. He doesn’t need a similar scoreline but he may require a greater shock if his City are to knock out Real Madrid now.

Guardiola himself estimated their chances at 1 percent. “I always say what I think and this time, you don’t believe me,” he said. “He doesn’t really think that just as we don’t think we have 99 percent,” countered Carlo Ancelotti; a quintuple Champions League winner who has experienced too much to fall for any kidology. “We have a small advantage.”

It is probably more than that and the truth lies somewhere in between. “The truth is that I don’t know what the accurate percentage is,” said Bernardo Silva, often a voice of reason. “It’s more than one.” But less than it was when City were winning 2-1 with five minutes to go at the Etihad Stadium. Then Brahim Diaz equalised. Then Jude Bellingham continued Real’s tradition of late goals against City.

“The result is not good,” said Guardiola. The odds seem stacked against his side now. “You have to make an almost perfect game. We came here with better results and it didn’t come.” That may have been a reference to the 2022 semi-final when City won 4-3 in Manchester, led for 178 minutes of the tie and were knocked out by Rodrygo’s late double, aided by Karim Benzema’s extratime intervention.