Pep warns City may need to top first leg display to reach final

Pep Guardiola feels Manchester City will probably have to improve on their first leg performance against Real Madrid to progress to the Champions League final.
City are 4-3 up in the last-four clash with Real after a pulsating initial encounter at the Etihad Stadium last week.

Speaking at his press conference ahead of Wednesday’s semi-final second leg at the Bernabeu, City boss Guardiola said: “Yes, probably we will have to be better.
“But at the same time I would like to tell you one thing – we could play much, much worse than we played and we could win, and not anyone can deny my assessment is right.
“So nobody knows, football is unpredictable. Sometimes you get something you don’t deserve, sometimes you don’t get something maybe you deserve, for the effort, for many things.”

City will look to reach their second straight Champions League final when they take on newly-crowned LaLiga champions Real in the Spanish capital and hope to atone for last year’s loss to Chelsea in the showdown in Porto.

“Two good teams, we saw it one week ago. They are champions in Spain, we are trying to be champions here,” Guardiola, whose side lead the Premier League by one point from Liverpool, added. “We saw in the other game things we have to improve and we are going to try and do it.”

Midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, who scored the opening goal against Real in the first leg in Manchester last week, said winning City’s first Champions League title would change perceptions around the club.

City have been a dominant force in England since the arrival of Guardiola in 2016 but remain in search of their first Champions League title, while opponents Real have won the trophy a record 13 times.

“We have not won it but winning it would change that little narrative. It would change the perspective from the outside,” De Bruyne said. “The fact we’ve been fighting for numerous years and getting to the latter stages means we’ve been doing really well.”

Real meanwhile will go on the attack as they bid to overturn their one-goal deficit, manager Carlo Ancelotti said.
Full back David Alaba is injured but midfielder Casemiro returns and, while there are question marks over the system and starting lineup, Real will use the aggressive approach that has delivered 11 goals in their last four Champions League matches.

“If we go back and try to defend with a low block, with 10 men on our box, City will have 99 shots on target. Sometimes you need to take risks and we were very successful this season when risking because we have a lot of quality up front,” Ancelotti told a news conference on Tuesday.

“It will be clash of two very different teams. Two teams with different qualities, collective and individual. But we’ll have home advantage and we’ll be aggressive as always. We have a quality up front that gives us the luxury to be daring on offence.
“Our morale and confidence is over the roof after winning the league title. We are locked into this game as it is the most important of the season.”