Man City unbeaten at home in Champions League since 2018, but with small print

Manchester City-Real Madrid to welcome the new Champions League play-offs. A round that serves as an impasse for those in love with the previous format and those who praise this new one. The extra matches are a nightmare for the coaches, who see two more games added to the calendar. But the truth is that for the neutral spectator it can be a marvel in a match that punishes two teams that did not do well during the regular phase and that now pay the price of facing each other at an unsuitable stage of the competition if we look at previous editions.

This is not a Manchester City team to be feared, as evidenced by their results since the end of 2024, but they retain the unpredictability of Pep Guardiola's Manchester City. They have lost their consistency and even the forcefulness that characterised them in the past, but they still have the pieces capable of coming together at any given moment and making a knockout tie dynamite. There are those who say that it is precisely a match like this that can put all those little short-circuits to one side and what was once a perfect machine can start working again. This first round at the Etihad gives Guardiola a chance to try to gain an advantage for a series that will be decided at the Santiago Bernabeu. And with the difficulty that implies.

The truth is that the Etihad has been a great support for the team in the Champions League, at least since Pep Guardiola has been there. And despite all the doubts surrounding the reigning Premier League champions, City have not lost a home game in the Champions League... since 2018! It was in September against Olympique Lyon in a game that was settled in the French side's favour with goals from Maxwel Cornet and Nabil Fekir, then without a single game in a Real Betis shirt. A lot has happened since then. In fact, only Bernardo Silva, Stones, Gundogan and Ederson are in a line-up completed by Delph, Laporte, Walker, Fernandinho, David Silva, Sterling and Gabriel Jesus.

Is there small print in City's impressive run at home? Yes and no. If we look at BeSoccer's ever-reliable history, we find a defeat for Pep Guardiola's side in August 2020, also at home to Lyon. But there's a catch: it was the edition of the pandemic that forced those final rounds to be moved to Lisbon, where both teams played a single match... and where the French emerged victorious thanks to Maxwel Cornet's goal and Moussa Dembele's brace (1-3). It certainly doesn't affect the run at the Etihad, which therefore doesn't add this match to the 35-match unbeaten run.

They didn't lose, but they don't have fond memories either, in the second leg of the 2023-24 quarter-final, precisely against Real Madrid. After a crazy 3-3 draw at the Santiago Bernabéu, Rodrygo gave 'Los Blancos' the lead, but Kevin de Bruyne equalised in the second leg to take the game into extra time, which ended goalless. In the shootout, 'Los Blancos' held on to seal their place in the semi-finals after Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic missed. It doesn't count as a defeat statistically (and therefore stays that run of 35), but it leaves that bitter memory.

On the other hand, there is also that little asterisk. Real Madrid don't know what it's like to win at Manchester City's stadium, although that penalty shoot-out is remembered as a moral triumph. In purely statistical terms, three draws and three defeats.