MANCHESTER CITY will face French champions Paris St Germain in their first Champions League quarter-final, with the first leg taking place in France.
City, the sole English club remaining in the competition, avoided incoming manager Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich and holders Barcelona, who have knocked them out in the past two seasons.
The teams have met only once before – a goalless draw in Manchester in the 2008-09 UEFA Cup.
However, both clubs – now two of the richest in the world – are barely recognisable from that encounter, when City were still in the infancy of Sheikh Mansour’s reign and PSG almost three years away from their Qatari takeover.
Champions League quarter-final draw
Wolfsburg v Real Madrid
Bayern Munich v Benfica
Barcelona v Atletico Madrid
Paris St Germain v Man City
The quarter-finals will take place on April 5-6 and 12-13.
We think, while it will be a very tricky assignment, the draw gives City a genuine chance of reaching the last four.
The obvious danger is Zlatan Ibrahimovic who has been in sparkling form this season and the likely absence of skipper Vincent Kompany through injury is a real cause of concern for City.
But if they can nick an away goal and leave Paris with a draw it will heap the pressure on their opponents for the return leg, with the French side having exited the tournament at the quarter-final stage in each of the last three seasons.
One potentially crucial factor in PSG’s favour is that, having wrapped up the Ligue 1 title with more than two months to spare, they can afford to rest key players ahead of the matches against City.
Manuel Pellegrini’s men, though, still face a battle on the domestic front to secure a place in the top four.
Manchester City fans, do you fancy your chances?
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paul35mm
Mar 20, 2016 at 11:56 pm
Two thoughts on this.
One, why does Pellegrini care if Man City are top 4? He’s been effectively sacked and his authority undermined by the stupid and gutless appointment of his successor while he’s still in the job. A far more satisfying outcome for the City manager would be to win the Champions League and have the team fail to make top 4. They’d still make the Champions League next season, but as a pot 3 or 4 team, meaning an ugly, ugly group draw, and it would also knock the fourth place Premier League side out of the Champions League.