Manchester City have suffered a blow ahead of Wednesday's Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid -by failing to secure their preferred hotel.
City boss Pep Guardiola is said to be superstitious and likes to return to hotels which he considers to have been lucky for his teams in the past. The Blues stayed at the £1,000-a-night Four Seasons Hotel for their quarter-final triumph over Atletico Madrid last month, with Guardiola wanting to return there for the semi-final against Real.
But City were unable to secure enough rooms for their squad and staff at the Four Seasons, so have had to switch to the nearby Mandarin Oriental Ritz hotel, where rooms still cost around £850-a-night.
Ilkay Gundogan reckons Manchester City face one of their toughest challenges to beat 13-time winners Real Madrid to reach the Champions League final.
City lead 4-3 going into their semi-final second leg at the Bernabeu, after an epic encounter at the Etihad in which Pep Guardiola's side blew a two-goal lead on three occasions. With such a slender lead and with Real having staged epic comebacks in the previous rounds to beat Paris St Germain and Chelsea, midfielder Gundogan reckons City have it all to do tomorrow.
“We're going to play away and we are going to play in a great stadium against a great team,” said Gundogan. “They're one of the greatest teams in history, so you can feel how much of a challenge it is. For us, it's the second time in a row that we're in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
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“It's huge for us and for the club, but I feel like there's still a long way to go and we want to get to the final again, like last year. We want to make it better than last year, so we're going to be prepared for Wednesday. We're full of confidence and it's going to be a great game, I'm sure.”
Guardiola was able to rest key players, including Kevin De Bruyne, for City's 4-0 win at Leeds on Saturday, with Gunodgan acknowledging the importance of arriving fresh for such big games. “We have to be in great shape,” said Gundogan. “If you want to compete in these kinds of stages, you need to take care of yourself and you need to be the best possible version of yourself.
“Not just individually, but also as a team. We changed the team a little bit and had quite a few players come in who didn’t play against Madrid in the week. Obviously it's important for everyone to be ready for this game and that's going to help us to maintain that level.”
City defender Aymeric Laporte echoed team-mate Gundogan and admitted Guardiola's players would like to be taking a bigger lead to Madrid, given their dominance of the first-leg. “I think we did a very good match in the first-leg,” said Laporte. “We would have liked to finish with a bigger margin. We know Real Madrid has a good story in this competition, but we are going to Madrid very confident to play a good match and secure the qualification to the Champions League final.”
