Manchester City host Real Madrid on Wednesday night in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals with the scores level following a pulsating 3-3 first-leg draw.
Here’s what City boss Pep Guardiola and midfielder Bernardo Silva, along with Real Madrid and England star Jude Bellingham had to say ahead of the tie:
Pep Guardiola says he does not fear Real Madrid
“No, I don’t fear them,” said Guardiola. “I respect them a lot and I’ve faced them many times. If I say I’m scared of them, I would be false. You can believe what you want when I say that. But I have to have respect for them.
“There’s the rivalry – you want to beat them and do well. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I want to do as well as we can and be ourselves, but I’m not scared of them and if they beat me – as has happened many times – we will say ‘congratulations’ and wish them well.
“You’re facing Real Madrid, they want to attack you and create chances. They’re very dangerous – they’ve always been the team to cause us problems and we’re going to have to give everything to win the game.
“The games have been good in previous years and this one will also be good. Perhaps they will do something different, we have to wait and see. They will have seen the way we played and adjusted certain things, so we’ll see what happens.”
Bernardo Silva says treble win has inspired City even more
“Of course – [it is] obviously an inspiration and motivation,” the midfielder said. “We know how well this team has done and we want to create that legacy and to do another Premier League to do six in seven years and four in a row. And we want to win the Champions League to do two in a row that only Madrid [who] did three in a row have done but no one else won four consecutive Premier Leagues.”
Bellingham not worried about City’s achievements
“Everyone’s spoken a lot about them [City], they’re the Treble winners and rightly so, they’re an amazing team. But you’ve got to understand that that’s the impression from the outside and the feeling from everyone else.
“I’m not a gambler, I’ve never been to the bookies so I don’t know the favourites and things like that. But I do know that we’re Real Madrid and we’re a pretty good team ourselves, we’ve got some brilliant players.
“It’s more external noise. Internally, we’re confident and we’re trusting in the abilities we’ve got in the changing room.”
