Guéhi and Semenyo to make first Champions League starts against Real | OneFootball

Marc Guéhi and Antoine Semenyo will make their Champions League debuts for Manchester City as Pep Guardiola’s make seven changes for tonight’s clash with Real Madrid.

Captain Bernardo Silva, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Ruben Dias, Rodri and Erling Haaland also return to Pep Guardiola’s side from the side that won 3-1 at Newcastle on Saturday.

Guéhi and Semenyo, who becomes just second player to play non-league, all four Football League tiers and the Champions League, were ineligible for the tail-end of the league phase following their move to the Etihad in January.

Abdukodir Khusanov, Nico O’Reilly, Savinho and Jeremy Doku retain their places for tonight’s Round of 16 first leg which kicks off at 20:00 (UK).

Both O’Reilly and Haaland scored when we won 2-1 at the Bernabeu earlier in the season.

Teams

REAL MADRID XI: Courtois, Alexander-Arnold, Rudiger, Huijsen, F. Mendy, Tchouameni, Valverde (C), Brahim, Thiago, Guler, Vinicius

Subs: Lunin, Gonzalez, Carvajal, Camavinga, Gonzalo, Asencio, Garcia, Mastantuono, Aguado, Cestero, Angel, Palacios

CITY XI: Donnarumma, Khusanov, Dias, Guéhi, O’Reilly, Rodri, Bernardo (C), Savinho, Semenyo, Doku, Haaland

Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Reijnders, Stones, Ake, Marmoush, Cherki, Nico, Ait-Nouri, Nunes, Foden, Alleyne

HOW WE LINE UP

It’s an attacking line-up and Guardiola has plenty of options with the 11 players that he’s selected with so much flexibility in the squad.

The selection looks like Abdukodir Khusanov and O’Reilly are set be our full-backs, with Dias and Guehi in the middle of the defence.

That leaves a midfield of Rodri and Bernardo with potentially Semenyo as a number 10.

Jeremy Doku and Savinho are our natural wingers with Haaland leading the line.

We’ve been here before!

It’s perhaps a curious statistic that we will have faced Real Madrid more times in the past five seasons than some of our Premier League rivals such as Aston Villa.

This is the 16th time the two sides have met in the Champions League – the 10th time in five seasons with the second leg to come next week at the Etihad Stadium. That’s twice as many as any other opponent – the next closest being Bayern Munich on eight.

Of course, it is only three months since we were last at the Bernabeu when goals from Nico O’Reilly and Erling Haaland secured a superb 2-1 victory.

The record across our 15 encounters could not be more even over 90 minutes, with five wins each and five draws, while at the Bernabeu, we have two wins and two draws from eight matches.

Top of the stops

With such attacking talent on display for both teams, it could be a night when the two goalkeepers need to be at their very best.

And this clash sees arguably the greatest two stoppers in the world right now – with City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma and Real’s Thibaut Courtois wearing the gloves.

Donnarumma won the Champions League last year with Paris Saint-Germain, with some notable displays in the competition helping him to the crown as FIFA’s Men’ Goalkeeper of the Year.

Meanwhile, since the 2022 final, Courtois has only conceded 39 goals (excluding own goals) from 53.2 xG on target faced - a positive differential of +14.2, which is the highest of any goalkeeper in the competition in this period.

“He’s always been playing at the top level and he’s been amongst the best in class for many years,” Donnarumma said ahead of tonight’s game.

“I have so many things to learn from him. He’s performed at the top level for every team, he’s always been amongst the best two or three in the world and for many years.

“We hope that in these two games we can do our best and I hope that we have some room to score some goals but he’s an amazing goalkeeper.”

Match stats

Only Bayern Munich (eight) and Juventus (seven) have won more Champions League games against Real Madrid than City (five).

However, City have been eliminated from the Champions League by Real Madrid on four occasions, the only side to knock us out more than twice. That includes in each of the last two seasons: 2023/24 quarter-finals and 2024/25 play-offs.

The last away team to keep a clean sheet in a Champions League knockout stage game away to Real Madrid was Barcelona in April 2011, then managed by Pep Guardiola (2-0 win). Since then, the Spanish side have scored in 39 in a row, averaging 2.2 goals per match (86 in total).

Guardiola will take charge of his 190th UEFA Champions League match here, equalling Alex Ferguson’s total in the competition (190). Following this fixture, Guardiola will only trail Carlo Ancelotti (218) on the list of most Champions League games by managers.

Coming into the round of 16 ties, City have scored the most goals following build-up sequences (six) in the UEFA Champions League this season, while no side have netted more following direct attacks than Real Madrid (4 – level with Benfica). Los Blancos are also ranked first for total direct attacks (31) this term.

Kylian Mbappe has scored more Champions League goals against City than any other opponent (seven), including netting a hat-trick in his most recent appearance against us, in last season’s play-off round.

Since the start of the 2019/20 edition (Erling Haaland’s first), only four players have registered 50+ goal involvements in the Champions League – three of which play for either Real Madrid (Mbappe 71, Vinícius Junior 55) or City (Haaland 61), along with Robert Lewandowski (63).

Among teams still remaining in the 2025/26 edition and prior to the round of 16 ties, the two players who have accounted for the highest share of their side’s goals in the Champions League this term are Mbappé (54% - 13/24) and Haaland (47% - 7/15).