Manchester City Draw Schalke in the UEFA Champions League

Manchester City have drawn Schalke in the Champions League Knock Out Phase which will mark a return for Leroy Sane to his former club.

The draw against Schalke has been welcomed by many Manchester City fans as a deserved reward for finishing top in the group. Many fans believe that City have avoided potentially much harder teams to play such as Atletico Madrid. Whilst it is true that Schalke are currently on a poor run of form, they could well have reversed that by the time we play them in Feb/Mar after the German Winter Break.

If one thing is clear to Manchester City after our Champions League exploits in the last 8 years, it is that nothing can be taken for granted and every team is capable of playing well in a knock out game.  As Pep Guardiola is fond of saying, the game will be decided by how we arrive in that moment. We will have faced our gruelling winter schedule and Schalke will have had a break. The state of playing squad and the amount of injuries could have a massive effect upon the result.

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So, the game is there to be played and if we are able to play to our best, with our best players then I would hope we would progress. It may be important that we have the return leg at The Etihad stadium, providing a real opportunity if we are able to claim a result in the first leg.

We have played Schalke 3 times before  during which we have won twice and lost once. We last played each other away 10 years ago and won 0:2. There is only a single survivor of that game in our squad – Vincent Kompany – and whether he gets the chance to play again against Schalke we shall have to wait and see.

This game marks a return for Leroy Sane who moved from Schalke for 50 million Euros back in August 2016. Indeed, Sane’s younger brother still plays for the Schalke Under 16 team, so the connections must run deep for Leroy. Against Hoffenheim Sane encountered a negative reaction from the German fans and it will be interesting to see what happens about his return to Schalke.

The dates have been confirmed for the ties and the 1st leg is away on Wednesday February 20 2019 and the return fixture is at The Etihad on 12 March 2019. Hopefully Manchester City will progress all the way in this years Champions League to the final in Madrid.