Search

16 Mar 2026

Pep Guardiola keeping faith as Man City prepare for Real Madrid with a day off

Pep Guardiola keeping faith as Man City prepare for Real Madrid with a day off

Pep Guardiola insists “many things can happen” as Manchester City seek to overturn a 3-0 deficit against Real Madrid in the Champions League.

City face an uphill battle to rescue their last-16 tie at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday after crashing to a heavy defeat in the first leg at the Bernabeu last week.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference, City manager Guardiola said: “It’s a football game, many things can happen.

“We have to focus and try to win the game and after see what happens. I don’t have a specific plan – just try.”

Guardiola has opted not to train on the day prior to the game as the team recover from the trip to Madrid and their away game at West Ham on Saturday.

“Training won’t improve us a lot and we don’t have time to train,” Guardiola said. “I prefer them to be at home.

“We will train tomorrow. We will arrive at 2pm, move the legs a little and go. I’ve done it two or three times this season.”

To continue reading this article,
please subscribe and support local journalism!


Subscribing will allow you access to all of our premium content and archived articles.

Subscribe

To continue reading this article for FREE,
please kindly register and/or log in.


Registration is absolutely 100% FREE and will help us personalise your experience on our sites. You can also sign up to our carefully curated newsletter(s) to keep up to date with your latest local news!

Register / Login

Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.

Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.