Man.City will embrace Brugge challenge in must-win Champions League clash: Guardiola

Pep Guardiola says Manchester City will embrace the “challenge” of Wednesday’s must-win Champions League clash against Club Brugge and is confident they will make the knockout stages.

The Premier League champions must beat last season’s Belgian league winners at the Etihad to progress to the play-off stage, involving teams ranked from ninth to 24th in the league phase.

The top eight teams automatically qualify for the round of 16, which takes place in March.

City endured a horrific run of just one win in 13 games in all competitions from October to December, which threatened to completely derail their season.

Guardiola’s men appear to have turned a corner in the Premier League, winning four of their past five games to climb back into the top four.

But lingering problems were exposed last week as Paris Saint-Germain battled back from 2-0 down to inflict a damaging 4-2 defeat on the 2023 European champions.

Guardiola has never failed to reach the Champions League knockout stages in his career as a manager and he said Tuesday he was confident his side would progress.

“It’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity, a challenge, and we will face it,” he told his pre-match press conference.

He added: “I expect a tough opponent. When a team is 20 games unbeaten (the run is 21) it is because they are good. There are no secrets about that.

“They beat Aston Villa, (against) Juventus, Milan they played good. Celtic... they did really well. Different variations in the build-up. We have to read well what we have to do.

“But every team -- Manchester City included -- has weaknesses. You have to find them and punish them.”

Guardiola appeared frustrated when quizzed on the potential consequences of an early exit from the Champions League. City are presently 25th in the league table after just two wins in their seven games.

“Of course, I’m not naive enough to know how important it is financially for the club to go through in this competition, but sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t,” he said.

“But, of course, we want to try to go through, especially for sporting reasons.”

The 54-year-old Catalan said he had faith the pressure of the situation would bring out the best in his players.

“I know they want it, I know how focused they are, and I don’t have doubts that we will perform what we have to do to go through, but with football, you never know,” he said.

Stuttgart and Hoeness out to shake up PSG: Stuttgart host Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday hoping to surprise their lofty opponents and make it through to the Champions League knockout rounds.

While the French champions are strongly favoured, since Sebastian Hoeness was made coach in April 2023, Stuttgart have made a habit of proving the doubters wrong.

Having somehow kept the club from the drop in his first season, Hoeness took Stuttgart to second place in 2023-24 -- 40 points better than the previous season and ahead of Bayern Munich.

This year, Stuttgart stumbled out of the gate as their surprise success led to a summer exodus of their best players, including striker Serhou Guirassy, captain Waldemar Anton and fellow centre-back Hiroki Ito.

Hoeness, the nephew of Bayern Munich powerbroker Uli, however steadied the ship, with Stuttgart back up to fourth in the Bundesliga.

Coach Flick backs Szczesny: Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said on Tuesday he and his staff have chosen Wojciech Szczesny over Inaki Pena as the team’s first choice goalkeeper.

The Catalan giants brought former Polish international Szczesny out of retirement as an emergency signing in October after Marc-Andre ter Stegen suffered a severe knee injury.

Pena has been the club’s number one during the first half of the season but Szczesny was chosen in the previous two matches.

“My job is to make the decision on this position... for me Tek (Szczesny) is an experienced player and he has a good personality, but both of them are great goalkeepers,” Flick told a news conference ahead of the Champions League clash with Atalanta.

Agencies