The City boss goes with the same starting line-up that beat Sunderland 3-0 on Saturday in the Premier League.
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Victory in game six of the league stage would see us move into the top-eight in the Champions League table as we aim to get one of the top spots to avoid the play-offs.
City travelled to Spain with a 21-man squad with Rodri, Mateo Kovacic and John Stones unavailable due to injury.
Teams
REAL MADRID XI: Courtois, Valverde (C), Asencio, Rudiger, Carreras, Tchouameni, Ceballos, Bellingham, Rodrygo, Gonzalo, Vinicius
Subs: Lunin, Fran Gonzalez, Endrick, Mbappe, Guler, Fran Garcia, Brahim, Cestero, Mastantuono, Martinez, Valdepenos
CITY XI: Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Nico, Bernardo (C), Foden, Cherki, Doku, Haaland
Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Reijnders, Ake, Marmoush, Ait-Nouri, Savinho, Khusanov, Bobb, Lewis
TACTICS
City are in the winning habit, with three victories on the bounce so Pep has stuck with a successful formula.
That should see Nico O’Reilly and Matheus Nunes as our full-backs either side of Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol.
Nico will playing in the holding midfield role with captain and Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden close by.
Erling Haaland will again lead the attack with Rayan Cherki and Jeremy Doku offering plenty of threat going forward for the Blues.
Old foes
If this feels like a regular fixture, that’s because tonight’s clash will be the 15th time we’ve met since the 2012/13 season, making it the most-played Champions League game during that time.
That probably reflects our positions as the most successful teams in Spain and England in recent years and even with the familiarity, it certainly hasn’t bred contempt, with the encounter as mouthwatering as ever.
This will be the fifth successive season that we visit the Santiago Bernabeu with two draws and two defeats in our last four trips and our last win there in February 2020 so a win is due.
How it stands
City go into tonight’s match sitting 12th in the Champions League standings and a victory in the Spanish capital would move us into the top eight and therefore avoid the play-offs for the round of 16.
The new format means those games can present a real pot luck of an opponent; last season we had the tricky task of facing tonight’s opponents who are also the record winners of the trophy.
Ahead of tonight’s game, the table shows we would currently face either Italian champions Napoli or Azerbaijani side Qarabag, so it’s a game to be avoided if possible.
Match stats
This will be the 15th time that Real Madrid and City have faced each other in the Champions League. Since their first meeting in the 2012/13 season, it is already the most-played fixture in the competition in this period (14 games).
City have lost our last two games against Real Madrid, suffering defeats home and away against them in last season’s play-off round. This is as many losses as we had experienced in our previous 11 games against the Spanish side combined.
Pep Guardiola has faced Real Madrid on 27 previous occasions, winning 48% of those matches and only lost one of his first nine away games. However, he is winless in the most recent four against the Spanish side and has never gone five in succession without beating them.
This will be the first managerial meeting between Xabi Alonso and Guardiola. Alonso made 79 appearances in his playing career under Guardiola, all for Bayern Munich between August 2014 and May 2016.
Since November 2024, City have lost six of our 12 games in the Champions League. Prior to this run of 12, their previous six defeats in the competition came over the course of 69 matches, between October 2018 and October 2024.
Real Madrid are currently on the third-longest streak of scoring in consecutive home games in European Cup/Champions League history (38 games), behind a 44-game run by Real Madrid themselves (September 2011-October 2018) and one of 45 games by Juventus (April 1973-September 2000). The last visiting side to keep a clean sheet away to Real Madrid in this competition was CSKA Moscow in December 2018 (0-0 draw).
Kylian Mbappe has scored nine goals in five games in the Champions League this season; the joint-most by a Real Madrid player in their first five appearances in a single edition, along with Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013-14 (9).
Erling Haaland has scored more goals in the Champions League than any other player since his debut campaign in 2019/20 (54). Indeed, two of the only three players who have netted 50+ goals in the competition in this period could both square off in this match, with Real Madrid’s Mbappe also netting 50 times since then (Robert Lewandowski being the other).
Mbappe has been directly involved in eight goals in seven games against City in the UEFA Champions League (seven goals, one assist); only Lionel Messi has had a hand in more against us in the competition - nine in eight appearances.
