A strong showing in the competition to date sees the young Blues with a good chance of progressing, but they do need to earn a point in Germany to ensure qualification.
City are tied at the top of the group with CSKA Moscow on ten points apiece, but with the Russians ahead on head to head record, the Blues will be relying on Viktoria Plzen to get a result if they are to progress as group winners.
Last time these two teams met City fired six of the best past their Bayern counterparts in a one-sided demolition job at Ewen Fields. However, with Bayern earning all three points away to group leaders CSKA last time out, Patrick Vieira’s men will be taking nothing for granted in this crucial encounter.
The EDS have been turning on the style in front of goal in the inaugural season of this competition, and have already found the net 15 times. Marcos Lopes and Devante Cole have five goals apiece, which leaves them as two of the players tied at the top of the goalscoring charts.
Meanwhile, Sinan Bytyqi’s total of three assists in the campaign is also the most achieved so far in the competition.
Vieira’s squad is a mixture of EDS and under-18 players, with Angelino, Kean Bryan, Ash Smith-Brown and Jack Byrne already earning starts in a strong and competitive squad.
against Middlesbrough on Friday night and should be fit to start in Germany.
Kick off is at 1pm (GMT) at Stadtisches Stadion. We’ll have updates on twitter and a match report on mcfc.co.uk.
