yep, still wondering how first leg goes if they dont have 9 days to relax and we have Palace and Villa in the meantime both must wins.
we are somehow underwinning CL imo, dont think there is a better side than us since the final we lost in 2021.
Chelsea 2021
Real 2022
City 2023
Real/Bayern/PSG or Dortmund 2024
not one another side above that is better than City. eventual winners likely had to beat us to win the trophy in 21 also 22 and imo Real gonna take it again.
the way we dominated most of the two legs in 2022 vs Real and how we dominated home leg vs Real now, its a shame we cannot turn dominating performances into going next round. thats something we need to learn.
at least we managed to break the previous line of failures when we exited vs lot lesser squads like Lyon, Monaco, Spurs because none of those team at that stage should have qualified over us. last we few years we exit vs the top level clubs even tho its bitter as we are better than them.
we had a tie vs Real back under Pellegrini in the semis, which was our first ever CL semis but over two legs we didnt even lay a hand on them. we were bit spineless, we were scared of them, respected them too much even in the home leg. of course that was sick strong Real side.
Marcelo, Pepe, Ramos defence, Kroos, Modric, Casemiro all 7/8 years younger, Benzema, Bale, CR etc. (Isco, Varane, James Rodriguez on bench etc)
we came a long way but still we need to learn to go ahead and punish opponents when we dominate them so much.
being effective with chances won real this tie. if that KDB chance late falls to Benzema or Rodrigo or Vinicius its a gooal in such a high pressure moment deciding a CL tie.
next season the format changes a bit, probably needs a bit of shakeup as the group stage is very dull and can be predicted 95% of clubs going through but more games, ore injuries, more rotation coming up too, and we need to finish high up so we get better draws later on.
