Backed by owners with deep pockets, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain look to take the next step when they meet in the Champions League quarter-finals.
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This year, the English side topped their group before making the quarter-finals for the first time in the club’s history, ensuring their manager leaves a notable Champions League legacy at the Etihad. “If we win, we’ll win as a team”.
The French giants are bidding to reach their first Champions League semifinal since 1994-95 and they have reached the quarterfinals in each of their four appearances in the competition since QSI’s arrival. However, despite City’s progress to the last eight, let’s not make the mistake of thinking they’ve suddenly turned into real Champions League heavyweights.
An email was sent out to fans on Monday evening to inform them of the price freeze and City officials will hope this will appease fans that have become disgruntled about the gradual growing ticket prices at the club. “You could maybe include Real Madrid in that, so once we avoided these three teams I feel like the media and all the supporters thought, well it’s an easy draw, but it is absolutely not”.
Lucas has established himself this season; a season which appeared, when it began, to be make-or-break for him with coach Laurent Blanc suggesting that he needed to do more and PSG having signed Ángel Di María – from United, of course, for roughly the same fee they paid for Moura.
“Maybe there’s a case but it’s not all about intensity”.
Yet for different reasons, City, who are yet to beat top-six Premier League opponents, have also failed to pass the tougher tests except in a Champions League campaign where they can boast away wins at Borussia Monchengladbach, Sevilla and Dynamo Kiev. We also played Bayern and it was very hard, but we won two and lost two. I was at the Chelsea match at the Parc des Princes and Chelsea had chances.
“City managed to win their domestic league, which is not easy, and some titles”, Blanc said. “Kun is a magnificent player”, said PSG defender Maxwell. “But I have seen so much of it that I gave them a speech yesterday saying, ‘Don’t listen to them, do not believe it, they know nothing about football'”. That was to be expected though, because when a player of Kevin de Bruyne’s quality is no longer available, then the club as a whole will suffer. “But maybe in Europe, they are a bit behind us”.
United aren’t playing particularly well, in fact, it’s arguably the worst Old Trafford side of the last 25 years, yet they have found some form at the right time and will pose a threat to City right until the end.
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“Yes, you can say there is competition to see who has the best team”, said Qatari football fan, Mohammed Al-Jazali, talking of the competition between Qatar and UAE.
