Manchester City vs PSG: Who will book ticket to the final?
Manchester City will be hoping to book their ticket to their first Champions League final as they take on PSG on Tuesday evening.
Both Manchester City and PSG will be hoping to book a spot in this year’s final following a tantalizing first-leg encounter. Whoever wins this match will face either Chelsea, who won the UCL in 2012, or Real Madrid, who are the most decorated side in this competition in Istanbul. Pep Guardiola’s men come into this match having eased to a comfortable 2-0 win over Crystal Palace, which could have seen them win the Premier League title this weekend, but Manchester United’s match with Liverpool was postponed due to Red Devils fans causing a ruckus. As a result, City will have to wait a bit longer to be crowned champions of England.
Meanwhile, PSG also ensured they stayed in the Ligue 1 title chase with a win over Lens, but they’ll still need to battle off challengers Monaco, Lille, and Lyon. For Les Parisiens, this season’s title race has been a lot more trying than the team and their fans would have expected, and Mauricio Pochettino, who failed to win trophies during his time with Tottenham, will be hoping to end his personal wait by potentially winning the Ligue 1 title and the Champions League this season.
PSG will have a lot of work to do, however. The French giants, who unfortunately finished as runners-up last year after former player Kinglsey Coman scored for Bayern to give die Roten the title, now will need to overturn a two goal deficit. Goals from Riyad Mahrez and Kevin De Bruyne cancelled out Marquinhos’s goal, and the stats don’t look good in PSG’s favor. Of 47 previous instances in which an English team won the away leg during a two-legged encounter, the English team has always progressed.
In addition, Manchester City are unbeaten so far in this season’s Champions League, with wins in ten of their last 11 games, including in their recent six. Guardiola had struggled to clear the quarter-finals stages three seasons in a row, but this time around, he finally overcame that hurdle by dumping Dortmund out to book their ticket, and are now 90 minutes away from their first European final in 51 years. They’ve never lost to PSG, either, with two wins and two draws – so will they continue this record and book their spot in the final for the first time in modern Champions League history?
Or will PSG manage to upset the huge odds stacked against them and return to the final, a year after experiencing disappointment?
