Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany (right) trains with team mates in Manchester on Monday, the eve of their Champions League last-16 game against Dynamo Kiev. (Photo: AFP)
Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany (right) trains with team mates in Manchester on Monday, the eve of their Champions League last-16 game against Dynamo Kiev. (Photo: AFP)
Manchester City are well set to make Champions League history and alleviate the misery engulfing English football’s heavyweights as they take on Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday.
City have never yet made it beyond the last 16 in Europe’s premier club competition but hold a 3-1 lead from the first leg in the Ukraine.
Although Manuel Pellegrini’s team have already secured the English League Cup this season, beating Liverpool on penalties to do so, it has been a largely inglorious year for England’s top clubs.
Barring a near-miracle at Camp Nou, Barcelona will complete victory over an Arsenal side they defeated 2-0 in London in the first leg.
With Chelsea crashing out to French champions Paris Saint-Germain last week and Manchester United crumbling in the group stages, City will almost certainly be England’s only remaining participants in the Champions League when the draw for the quarter-finals is made — providing they see off Kiev.
Yet even victory at Eastlands won’t mask what has been a thoroughly depressing season for English giants as Leicester City continue to dominate the Premier League table while United, Chelsea and Liverpool languish outside even the European qualification places.
Arsenal and City are eight and nine points respectively behind Leicester and both out of the FA Cup.
Even in the Europa League, England look set to be left with one single representative in the quarter-finals.
And so success for City would have extra significance in arresting the slide that has swamped the English Premier League since the heady days when for three seasons in a row from 2007-2009, three of the four Champions League semi-finalists were from England.
Not that Pellegrini believes the tie with Dynamo is over.
“If we can get to the quarter-final of the Champions League for the first time, of course that will be another important achievement,” said the Chilean, who will leave City at the end of the season. They are a big team who play attacking football in their league so we must be wary about that.”
Atletico’s dogged defence drives European dream Often overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of Real Madrid’s galacticos and collective brilliance of Barcelona’s attacking triumvirate of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar, Atletico Madrid have carved out their own golden era on a historically great defence.
PSV Eindhoven travel to the Vicente Calderon for the second-leg of their Champions League last-16 clash on Tuesday, with the tie finely balanced at 0-0, tasked with one of the most difficult challenges in European football: breaching the Atletico backline.
In 14 Champions League matches at home since Diego Simeone rode to Atletico’s rescue four years ago, only three sides have managed to score with Benfica, earlier this season, the only away team to win in the Spanish capital.
