In Champions League betting odds, Manchester City are currently favourites to win, and with all their success in recent years, you can understand why. Yet, it might be a surprise that they have never won the tournament in the past.
On the blue side of Manchester, you will find a rich trophy cabinet that includes four Premier League titles (as well as two First Division titles), six FA Cups and six League Cups. The club did see some success in Europe, winning the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1970, but the competition was abolished in 1999.
Last season the club managed the treble with the Premier League title, FA Cup and League Cup but were knocked out of the Champions League on away goals by Tottenham Hotspur, who went on to face Liverpool in the final.
The question remains: why are Man City favourites, if they have never won in Europe and are failing to contest current Champions of Europe, Liverpool, to retain the top-flight title?
Current Group Stages
In Group C, Man City have one of the easiest groups in the competition with Dinamo Zagreb, Shakhtar Donetsk and Atalanta making up the rest of the group. So far, the Northern club have won three and drawn one. Five points ahead of Shakhtar and Zagreb, it’s fair to say they’ve qualified for the knockout stages.
The first two games saw the English club keep a clean sheetup until they met Atalanta in October. During the first half, a bad challenge from Fernandinho awarded Atalanta a penalty, which Ruslan Malinovskiy converted to wipe away Man City’s pristine record. The penalty gave the visitors the lead, forcing Pep Guardiola’s men to pull up their socks – which they did. Sergio Agüero went on and scored twice to make it 2-1 at the end of the first half before Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick in the space of 11 minutes during the second half.
After their more recent battle with Atalanta, Man City ended up in their first Champions League tie game this season. Due to a bad goalkeeping decision from Claudio Bravo, defender Kyle Walker was forced to put on the keeper’s gloves for the last 10 minutes, making a crucial save in the process.
With only two games left in the group stages, Guardiola needsto get his team back on track and anticipate who their potential opponents could be in the round of 32.
Previous competitions
It’s not as if the Sky Blues have never been a threat in the Champions League. They have reached the quarter-finals twice, and the semi-finals in the last four years, but most often have found themselves leaving the competition during the round of 16.
Their worst performance came after they won the Premier League title in 2012. They failed to make it out of the group stages during the 2012-13 Champions League competition, after being drawn alongside Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Ajax – all big European forces.
The current favourites
Of course, even as favourites it’s still a close call between the other giants in Europe. The bookies are also backing Liverpool to retain their title as well as Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Juventus.
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At the beginning of the season manager, Guardiola insisted that he would not shift focus onto European football, even though it is rumoured that the purpose of his signing was to achieve a European trophy.
With the Premier League title seemingly running away from the club under the arms of Liverpool; will Pep focus on the Champions League after such a favourable start? It seems like it’s one or the other as achieving the quadruple or even another treble at the moment, seems almost impossible.