Real Madrid would not want to play Manchester City, says Carlo Ancelotti

GUINGAMP – Real Madrid hope to avoid Manchester City in the next round, coach Carlo Ancelotti said after they beat Brest 3-0 on Jan 29 to reach the Champions League play-offs, where they will be seeded.

The holders will face either Celtic or Manchester City in the two-legged play-off in February, with the second leg at home.

“We don’t like to play against City, but if we have to, we’ll do it like on other occasions,” Ancelotti told a press conference when asked whether he preferred to be drawn against the Citizens or the Bhoys.

“City have more chances to win the Champions League.”

He also told Movistar: “It’s a draw and what comes, comes. To win the Champions League you have to win every game.”

The draw will be held on Jan 31 in Nyon, Switzerland.

“If we want to win this competition we have to beat the best teams,” Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois said.

The Spanish giants missed direct qualification to the last 16 due to a poor start in the league phase, with three losses from their first five matches.

“We should have woken up earlier in this competition. Now it’s like this,” Ancelotti said.

Rodrygo, who scored a double, acknowledged his team had fallen short.

“Top eight was our objective but we didn’t do well in some games. Now we have to keep improving,” he told Movistar.

The Brazilian attacker scored the first and last goals after 27 and 78 minutes respectively, while Jude Bellingham netted the second in the 56th following a smart pass from Lucas Vazquez.

Despite the loss, Brest will also feature in the two-legged play-off as an unseeded team in their first European campaign.

Brest are 18th with 13 points and will meet either Paris Saint-Germain or Benfica in the next round.

“It would be a shame to be drawn against Paris,” Brest midfielder Pierre Lees-Melou told Canal Plus.

Also hoping to avoid City are Bayern Munich.

Their coach Vincent Kompany said the German side will have to switch their mentality to fit the knockout games.

Bayern beat Slovan Bratislava 3-1 on Jan 29 in their last game of the new league phase of the competition but failed to finish in the top eight and missed out on automatic round-of-16 qualification.

They will now face either City or Celtic.

“Now we have to restore this energy to be hot for those games,” Kompany said.

“Now City as well as Celtic enter these knockout matches with a good feeling and we need to have that as well...

“We now have to switch the mentality to be fully energised for these games.” 

Bayern opened the scoring after eight minutes, when Joshua Kimmich floated a cross into the box and the unmarked Thomas Muller nodded in.

Harry Kane headed in their second on 63 minutes, before Kingsley Coman made it 3-0 six minutes from time.

Slovan struck in the 90th minute through Marko Tolic to leave Bayern in 12th place on 15 points from their eight matches. The Slovakian side finished second last of 36 teams without a point.

Bayern’s Bundesliga rivals Borussia Dortmund are also seeded for the knockout stage after a 3-1 win over Shakhtar Donetsk. Following that match, they announced the appointment of former Bayern boss Niko Kovac, 53, as the replacement for Nuri Sahin, who was sacked on Jan 22. REUTERS