Pep Guardiola feels Manchester City has a “1%” chance of keeping their Champions League aspirations alive by defeating Real Madrid in the second leg on Wednesday in Spain.
Madrid won the title for the 16th time by defeating Borussia Dortmund in last season’s final at Wembley. They won the first leg 3-2 at the Etihad last week, scoring twice in the closing four minutes to overcome a 2-1 lead following two earlier goals by Erling Haaland for City.

City has to beat Carlo Ancelotti’s squad in Madrid to prevent an early elimination from this year’s competition. The team has only triumphed once at the Bernabéu, a 2-1 round-of-16 victory in February 2020.
Although Guardiola, a former coach of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, acknowledges that his City squad has an uphill task to climb in the Bernabéu, he believes they still have a slim chance of making it to the next round.

“The margin to win in Bernabéu in that position [3-2 down], everybody knows that if you ask before the game, the percentage to go through, I don’t know, we arrive at 1%, or I don’t know what,” Guardiola told reporters.
“It will be minimal, but as much as you have a chance, we will try, that’s for sure, you know?”The outcome was not favourable; five minutes ago, it would have been 2-1, so the probability is little.
“But with 2-3, the chance is less, but as much as you have a chance, we are going to take it, and we’ll see what happens.”

With 12 losses across all competitions and their title aspirations already gone by the halfway point of the season, City has had their worst season since Guardiola took over as manager in 2016.
Also the City head coach acknowledges that although this season has been incredibly disappointing, Saturday’s 4-0 victory over Newcastle at home may serve as a boost for a comeback in the closing weeks of the season.

“Listen, there are many, many games that we didn’t play the level we play, and at the end, we lost it,” stated Guardiola.
“And that was not just the three points, it’s how it is affecting our minds for the next game. “It occurred many times during this season, we have actually been miles away.