The Santiago Bernabéu is decked out today to celebrate one of the first big nights of the year. An event in which the white parish celebrates one of those great European nights of the Champions League much earlier than usual. But who cares about the date when you welcome Manchester City to your home.
And the Whites do so, for the first time in all the ties they have played against the Citizens, with a one-goal advantage from the first match. A first leg that was little short of a pitched battle at the Etihad Stadium, in which the Whites pulled off another epic night to take a minimal advantage into the return leg.
Ancelotti leaves nothing to chance in welcoming Manchester City
However, and despite the advantage, absolutely nobody at Real Madrid is feeling confident about this game. Neither because of the result in the first leg nor because of the bad run of form being experienced by Pep Guardiola‘s team. This is the Champions League, and one bad night in this competition can send you home. Something of which Carlo Ancelotti is fully aware.
Fortunately for him, compared to the first leg, he has recovered several players who were unable to travel to Manchester. We are talking about Rüdiger and Alaba, who were unable to play in the first leg due to muscle injuries. And while the Austrian was not in many people’s starting eleven, Rüdiger was almost certain to be in it.
And the truth is that the return of the German central defender multiplied Carletto’s possibilities for forming his starting eleven. At his side in defense, he had the option of playing with Asencio or Tchouaméni. And if he chose the youth team player, the Frenchman could return to the pivot, a position in which, during the warm-up, the only doubt revolved around whether he or Camavinga would be Ceballos’ partner, taking into account that Fede Valverde would play one more night at right back.
Where there was no doubt regarding the Italian’s starting eleven, obviously, was in the attacking line-up, where Bellingham, Rodrygo, Vinícius and Mbappé were assured of a starting place, using the same system as in the first leg, although with some slight modifications, there being more certainties than doubts in the starting eleven that the Italian would choose.
Real Madrid’s official line-up to host City
These doubts were allayed practically two hours before the kick-off, with Ancelotti playing it safe and selecting the following eleven.
Real Madrid C.F.: Courtois; Mendy, Asencio, Rudiger, Valverde; Bellingham, Tchouameni, Ceballos; Vinicius Jr., Rodrygo and Mbappé.