Champions League Playoff: Can Manchester City Salvage Their Season?

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The American football season may now be over, but the drama in Europe’s club football season, aka soccer, is just heating up. Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City squad has been England’s most dominant club, with six home league trophies in the past seven years and a Champions League title in 2023. But this year’s campaign has been a struggle, as they sit five spots back in the English Premier League and barely qualified for the Champions League playoff. And now, having drawn defending champions Real Madrid in their first playoff matchup, things won’t get any easier. So with the two teams playing the first of two legs on Tuesday, Luis Miguel Echegaray tells Clinton Yates what to watch for in yet another clash between these two storied clubs. Will City’s recent $223 million spending spree help them right the ship? Can Real Madrid overcome their own crucial injuries? Has Kylian Mbappé finally found his groove in Madrid? Plus, a look at how this tournament is a crucial part of World Cup 2026 preparation for Christian Pulisic and other American players. Previous coverage on Atalanta’s emotional journey through the pandemic: Apple Podcasts | Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Luis Miguel is Chegaire.
0:01.8	I have to ask you something that's a little awkward because it's not on our network,
0:06.1	but this colossal coverage of the European Champions League,
0:08.9	I mean, this is now on par, if not for my money, better than NFL Red Zone.
0:14.4	Can you give me your take on the impact that this has had on how Americans experience this sport just overall?
0:20.5	C. Why, are you about to get fired here? You're about to give some props to another? on how Americans experience this sport just overall? See why.
0:20.9	Are you about to get fired here?
0:22.3	You're about to give some props to another network.
0:26.0	Listen, I'm in a full, full agreement with you.
0:32.8	One of the things about the Champions League, which is difficult, not just the Champions League, but
0:38.0	our beautiful game, soccer, football, whatever you want to call it, to try and sell it to an American
0:42.8	market is to make sure that you make it attentive and you give it some excitement. And the Champions
0:49.4	League, because it's the elite European competition out of the best clubs in Europe,
0:56.1	you have to sell it more than just prestige and royalty from the clubs.
1:00.0	And to your point, what CBS has done with, the red zone equivalent, you know,
1:04.2	just giving you goals after goals, has been a real win.
1:06.7	And I know that we're going to talk about it, the format has made it into a win.
1:11.7	Because that last match day of the first league phase round was remarkable television.
1:18.0	That was a telenovela at its finest, CY.
1:21.2	So many matches because they all were trying to compete and stay in the top eight.
1:25.8	Switching to the middle.
1:26.8	Charts in.
	...

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