Tuesday night’s clash between la Liga Champions Real Madrid and English premier League champions Manchester United is being relished by City boss Roberto Mancini after their rapid rise to the top since billionaire owner Sheikh Mansour to charge of the club four years ago this month.
The game at the Bernabeu represents just how far the club has come in such a short time with manager Mancini saying: “If you play against Real or Barca, you are up against 100 years of history.
“These clubs have won everything. For this reason, I think it will be really difficult.
“But there is excitement. There are incredible moments in the careers of players when they come up against a team like this.
“It’s good for everyone — for the club, for the players, for the supporters. It’s the first game in the Champions League for us this year.
“I think it will be a fantastic game, a fantastic moment for everyone at the club.”
He then added: He added: “Our mentality is we want to win always. We know it will be a tough game. We are playing against one of the best teams in the world but we want to do our job well.”
Meanwhile in Madrid the Champions find themselves eight points behind rivals Barcelona after losing 1-0 away to Sevilla over the weekend their worst start to a season in a decade.
Mourinho slammed his team saying: I changed only two players at half-time, I wanted to change seven of them,” said Mourinho.
“What worries me more than the eight-point difference between us and Barca is that I don’t have a team at the moment.”
There has been a lot of talk over Ronaldo’s so called unhappiness but Mourinho thinks that this has nothing to do with the team’s poor performance saying: “I don’t think it has affected us.
We played a similar game at Getafe and against Granada,” said the manager.
“It is more to do with a lack of concentration as a team. I think football is not the top priority for some in their heads at the moment, but I am the coach and so that is my fault.”
When talking about this week’s match against Manchester City and their dramatic rise to power Mourinho said: “Quite simply Real Madrid is a club like no other. It’s incomparable with any other club in the world.
“There are some things that money can’t buy — trophies and history.
“What I do know about City is they have very good players and they are a powerful side.”
He went on to talk about the threat of Tevev and Balotelli and knows his players will have to up their game if they want to beat the Citizens come Tuesday.
