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Manchester City travel to the Danish capital to face FC Copenhagen in the Champions League knockout stages on Tuesday evening.
Copenhagen head coach Jacob Neestrup infamously claimed that the atmosphere at Parken Stadium was 100 times more intense than Manchester United’s home ground earlier this season. Given Pep Guardiola’s own misgivings with the Etihad crowd, one can only imagine how the din in Denmark compares to City’s stadium.
Nevertheless, the reigning European champions are heavy favourites in almost any venue they enter. Guardiola gave his side a 0.1% chance of repeating their treble-winning feat of last season but the odds of victory on Tuesday will be considerably higher.
Here’s the starting XI Guardiola may deploy to maximise his side’s chance of success.
GK: Ederson – City’s Brazilian shot-stopper has recorded eight clean sheets in his last 15 Champions League matches.
RB: Kyle Walker – Thanks to a brief spell between the posts against Atalanta in 2019, Walker can boast as many career Champions League clean sheets (one) as City’s backup goalkeeper Stefan Ortega.
CB: John Stones – The star of last season’s Champions League final has only made two appearances in the competition this term. Kalvin Phillips was used more often in Europe before his January departure.
CB: Ruben Dias – City’s defensive lynchpin is one booking away from suspension.
LB: Nathan Ake – One of only two players to have featured in every European game for City this season.
CM: Kevin De Bruyne – The Belgian maestro has not finished a Champions League game since the first leg of last season’s semi-final against Real Madrid when he scored City’s equaliser.
CM: Rodri – It’s been more than a year since Rodri last lost a game of football for City.
CM: Julian Alvarez – Now under the stewardship of arguably the game’s greatest-ever manager, Alvarez’s first coach was a delivery driver.
RW: Bernardo Silva – Somehow convinced his wife to let him name their French bulldog ‘John Stones’ so that he could boss his teammate’s namesake around at home.
ST: Erling Haaland – After Haaland scored twice against Copenhagen in October 2022, the beaten and beleaguered goalkeeper Kamil Grabara turned to Jack Grealish and said: “The guy is not human.” Grealish fired back: “Bro, I know, you’re telling me!”
LW: Phil Foden – According to Guardiola: “Only Phil will decide his limits.” Foden has shown few signs of plateauing any time soon.
