As we head into the UEFA Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday and Wednesday night, European football’s most decorated clubs Real Madrid & AC Milan host Man City & Inter in huge games.
We spoke exclusively to Bet9ja Ambassador Victor Ikpeba who gave us his thoughts on what Man City need to do to secure a historic treble and finally get over the line against Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League!
VI: Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City are now favorites in every competition they remain in, they lead the Premier League by a point from Arsenal with a game in hand, they face a struggling Manchester United in the FA Cup final and they look to be the strongest side left in this season’s Champions League so the question is, are these guys going to be history makers? Are they going to win the treble?
They could have done it two seasons ago, when they won the Premier League with ease and then surprisingly lost to Chelsea in both the FA Cup semi-finals and famously, in the Champions League final in Porto. For all the talk of Liverpool’s possible quadruple last season, the Citizens won the Premier League and once again lost in the FA Cup semi-finals to Liverpool before losing to Tuesday nights opponents Real Madrid in the most dramatic of circumstances at the same stage of the UCL. As they have learned in the last few years, this is the beautiful game and there are no guaranteed results.
But those sides didn’t have the thing that makes this iteration of Guardiola’s side so much better; Erling Haaland.
It is so clear that with Haaland in the side, City have that killer instinct they lacked in big moments over the last couple of years as Sergio Aguero’s injury problems mounted and Guardiola resorted to playing without a recognised striker.
But despite all of this, my view remains that the road to the treble is going to be tricky and this tie is the biggest stumbling block in that quest for ultimate glory. This group of Real Madrid players, for the most part, have won 5 UEFA Champions League titles in the last 10 years and are led by the most successful manager in the competition’s history in Carlo Ancelotti.
Last season, Madrid did what they had done throughout the entire 2022/23 tournament and pulled a rabbit out of the hat as Rodrygo struck 2 goals in injury time to take the game to extra-time before Benzema completed the turnaround from the penalty spot after City had dominated the game.
Real Madrid have all the experience in this arena of getting over the line even when the odds are stacked against them whilst for Man City, the only UEFA Champions League winner in the squad is the 3rd choice goalkeeper Scott Carson who picked up a winners medal as a part of the Liverpool squad in 2005 who completed that famous comeback in the stadium hosting this year’s final.
I think an advantage for this City side will be the manner in which they defeated Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. They were absolutely ruthless at home before putting in an extremely impressive and professional performance at the Allianz Arena to see the tie out. Last season, they didn’t kill the semi-final off either at the Etihad or the Bernabeu and allowed Real Madrid to perform the unlikeliest of comebacks but that showing in Germany last month showed me how much this City side had matured in the last 12 months on the European stage.
It will be a difficult night for Man City in the first leg in what is sure to be a raucous atmosphere against the reigning champions but I’m torn between how good the Premier League champions look with Haaland leading the line and the weight of history they must overcome to reach the final in Istanbul.
