Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini has warned that stopping Real Madrid is about much more than shutting out Cristiano Ronaldo.
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Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure returned to training on Tuesday on the eve of his side’s Champions League semi-final second leg away to Real Madrid.
Real Madrid will have Ronaldo back after he missed three straight games because of a leg injury, including the 0-0 first-leg draw in Manchester last week.
“Ronaldo and (Alvaro) Arbeloa completed the session with the group while Benzema was out running alone on the pitch”, Madrid said in a statement on Monday. The Portuguese forward leads the Champions League with 16 goals, one shy of the record he set in the 2013-14 season.
The 10-times European champions scraped a 1-0 win at Real Sociedad in La Liga on Saturday without their two top scorers. “I know how lucky we are because it is not every season you can say you play a semi-final of the Champions League”, said the French global.
Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was once again bullish about his place in football’s history books, insisting he is among the all-time greats “whether people like it or not”.
“But we have another squad list and so everybody else can play”. “I also had to select a team based on who would play on Wednesday”. It’s to win, play well, score as many goals as possible, help my team and enjoy it. “Enjoy” is the word that I need to underline, because that’s football: “it’s happiness, it’s passion and it’s adversity as well”. I am expecting a lot of goals from both sides since these two teams have exceptional attacking talent but weak defenses.
“It’s going to be hard, but if we don’t advance it will be a failure”, he said.
“But Cristiano? He will always be a different player”.
Striker Kelechi Iheanacho has admitted City will head to Real Madrid with their confidence damaged by Sunday’s 4-2 Premier League defeat at Southampton.
“Aguero has all my respect and he is a key player for City, a very good player, but we will not do anything special to stop him”, he added.
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With the club’s Champions League qualification hopes for next season hanging on by a thread, Mangala said City’s full focus is on winning a maiden Champions League title.
