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City’s failure to qualify automatically for the last-16 of the Champions League means they have to face the current holders in order to reach that stage. City will host the first leg on 11 or 12 February before travelling to the Bernabéu on 18 or 19 February.
It is the fourth successive season in which Guardiola’s side have drawn the 15-time Champions League winners. City, who are preparing to face Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday, also play Newcastle, Liverpool, Tottenham and Leyton Orient in the FA Cup to make it seven games in 21 days.
“The schedule is what it is,” said Guardiola. “In the Premier League everyone has to play everyone but what normally happens is we have tougher schedules for the [Premier League] teams in Europe. It’s tough playing against Real Madrid, the problem is in the middle playing Newcastle.” He sarcastically added: “They are always so kind with the calendar, for many years it always happened that way.”
Guardiola has previously argued that English teams that compete in Europe should be afforded extra days’ rest by the domestic fixture schedulers. Now in his ninth season at City, he wearily accepts that is unlikely to happen. “Are you asking me that question? Come on, don’t make me say something impolite,” Guardiola said in response to a further question about the fixture list. “I’m not complaining because we’ve had incredible success with this calendar. We accept it. We won the treble and the quadruple doing it like this. We survive and if we don’t survive it’s because the opponents are better.
“When I was training at Barcelona I followed the Premier League – because it’s the most attractive league in the world – and Sir Alex Ferguson, José Mourinho, …
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