Manchester City came from behind to clinch a 2-1 victory over Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu in February.
The Covid-19 pandemic has suspended the European competitions and Marca has an update on when the Champions League would resume.
According to the Spanish newspaper, the return leg between Pep Guardiola’s side and Los Blancos is likely to take place on August 7th.
If the tie is played on the aforementioned date, it would have been 174 days since the Premier League winners registered a win in Madrid.
Before the global health crisis, City were considered favourite to progress further in the competition. However, it’s unclear what would the situation will be like in August.
Zinedine Zidane and his men will have a period of close to three months to prepare for the tie and the players would have also accumulated minutes by playing in the league, if everything goes according to plan.
The same can be said about City as well [if the Premier League restarts], but that’s not mentioned by Marca.
UEFA will take a final decision on this season’s Champions League and the Europa League on May 27th, and the most advanced idea as of now is for both competitions to return in August.
Real Madrid’s priority is to win the league, yet Marca adds they also have an eye on lifting the Champions League trophy. Zidane as a manager has never been eliminated from the knockout stages of the continent’s elite competition.
It’s unclear what will happen to those players whose contracts are set to expire in the summer, especially those from France and the Netherlands as the two countries have already ended the 2019/20 domestic season.
If UEFA decide to go ahead with the plan of restarting the European competitions in August, then the start of the next season (and maybe even the transfer window) would be delayed.
