Back in the Real world, Xabi Alonso finds himself under an absurd amount of pressure, and here’s the latest reason why. Sid Lowe reports on a display of cinematic Celta supercool.
Manchester City will tonight sport their fourth-choice kit. It’s a green affair with jet-set geometric squiggles all over it, and a chip embedded within the City crest that, if you were to wave a newfangled “smart electric telecommunications device” over it, unlocks a slew of bonus features for Emlyn Hughes International Soccer on the C64 EA Sports FC 26. This is the sort of news that will either excite you or make you feel so very old and useless. Latest score: Excited 0-1 Old & Useless
The big news for Real Madrid: Kylian Mbappé, the four-goal hero of the 4-3 win at Olympiacos, is only on the bench. He’s got a broken finger as well as a leg problem.
Manchester City’s line-up is less seismic in terms of news: they name the same starting XI that swatted aside Sunderland 3-0 on Saturday.
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The teams
Real Madrid: Courtois, Valverde, Asencio, Rudiger, Carreras, Tchouameni, Bellingham, Rodrygo, Ceballos, Vinicius Junior, Gonzalo Garcia.
Subs: Lunin, Gonzalez, Endrick, Mbappe, Guler, Francisco Garcia, Diaz, Cestero, Mastantuono, Martinez, Valdepenas.
Manchester City: Donnarumma, Matheus Luiz, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Silva, Gonzalez, Foden, Cherki, Haaland, Doku.
Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Reijnders, Ake, Marmoush, Ait Nouri, Savio, Khusanov, Bobb, Lewis.
Referee: Clement Turpin (France).
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Preamble
Real Madrid are sixth in the Champions League table, and second in La Liga. So of course their coach Xabi Alonso, just a few minutes in the job, is already in danger of the push. Of course he is. He could probably do without the visit of Manchester City, then. Not that life is as comfortable as it usually is for Pep Guardiola’s men: they’re currently outside the top-eight places in the Champions League, and while they’ve scored 11 goals in their last three games, they’ve conceded six, and before that were dispatched 2-0 at home by Bayer Leverkusen. This battle between two giants of world football not quite on top of their game kicks off at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
