Jude Bellingham will be one of the seven Real Madrid players who runs a disciplinary cord in the first stage of the play-off collision of Champions League with Manchester City.
The Premier League champions and the Spanish party come together next week if they try to reach the last 16. Both clubs ended outside the automatic qualifying places after indifferent competitions.
City squeezed just about after beating Club Brugge on the last day, while Real Madrid Marginally missed an automatic place in the Knock Rondes. And with a few days to go to the game, Real will sweat on the discipline of some of the star names.
As it looks now, seven Los Blancos stars run in a cord with a suspension. Each Van Bellingham, Luka Modric, Eduardo Camavinga, Aurelien Tchouameni, Eder Militao, Antonio Rudiger and Endrick all collected two bookings during the competition phase.
And according to UEFA rules, those bookings transfer to the play-offs, with an extra yellow card that deserves players a suspension of one match. It means that if one of the seven next week is booked in the first leg on Etihad, they will miss the decisive second stage in the Bernabeu later in the month.
In the meantime, Carlo Ancelotti is also threatened. The Italian tactician was also booked twice during the competition phase and another yellow card could be exiled from the touchline.
And that is after Ancelotti claimed that he was not enthusiastic about the prospect of looking at the city again. He said: “City will rather win the Champions League, that's the reality. We don't like to play against City, but if we have to play City, we will do it as we have in previous years.”
Although Real becomes a serious threat of suspensions, the same cannot be said entirely about the city. Only Ruben Dias has so far collected two bookings, so it will be banned if he takes another against the Spanish side.
Speaking for the collision with Real, Stadsbaas Pep Guardiola said: “It seems like a derby, four years in a row to Madrid. Madrid or Bayern, both were really difficult, hopefully we can arrive here in the first stage and the next in Madrid as good as possible. “
City hopes to avoid a similar fate as last season. They clashed with Real Madrid in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, only to lose on penalties after a 4-4 aggregated draw.
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