Manuel Pellegrini claims Manchester City have “nothing to fear” against his former club Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals.
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Real Madrid is a record 10-time European champion, while City is in the semifinals for the first time.
“It will be very hard, but we will compete to the maximum like we always do”.Zinedine Zidane, the current Real Madrid boss, is anticipating a “big battle” against City but took some positives from the draw.
Pellegrini could potentially face his successor at City, Pep Guardiola, in the final if both City and Bayern were to progress. Then, the German club won 4-0 in a replay to take the first of its five European titles.
Atletico-Bayern match will held at Vicente Calderon next 27 April.
Atletico Madrid will aim to keep upsetting the odds in their Champions League semifinal against Bayern Munich, according to club spokesperson Clemente Villaverde.
Villaverde added that he would not be against a repeat of the 2014 final, when Atletico lost out in heart breaking fashion to neighbours Real Madrid after extra time.
“I think always the more motivation is to play the semi-final of the Champions League”.
The other semi-final sees Sevilla face Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk as the Spanish side look to win their third successive Europa League having seen off Dnipro in the final of last year’s competition and Benfica in the previous season. The return leg match in Germany on May 3.
Jose Luis Caminero, Atletico’s sporting director and former player, described the tie as “complicated” but promised the Spanish side would “compete to our maximum as we always do”.
The semi-final ties will be played on Thursday, April 28th and Thursday, May 5th.
Ocampo suggested “the real problem with Mr”.
“You never know, in these two games, it has been shown that circumstances can change during the games”, he said.
“They have a good mentality under their coach (Diego) Simeone and have good players going forward in (Fernando) Torres and (Antoine) Griezmann”.
Rooney has been out since mid-February with a knee injury.
“The two semi-finals are very tight because four teams that reach this stage of competition means that the four have demonstrated sufficient capacity to be here”.
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Van Gaal also said Germany midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger would likely be out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.
