Real Madrid vs Manchester City

Frankly this is going to make or break our season. Ronaldo is doing everything he can to play but I'd rather not play him if he is semi injured. Judt going to disrupt our team. Benzema is definitely out

City will be missing Silva but should have the rest of the squad ready

We need to score an early goal to become comfortable. The longer it stays 0-0 the more chances City have of sneaking a goal from an Otamendi header or KDB long shot. I believe in this team though. Zidane has brought the fighting spirit back from the Mourinho days

Probable line up:

If Ronaldo does not play which is very unlikely then Lucas is expected to take over

Lol so Ronaldo is already back in training. I have no idea how that is even possible considering he got a hamstring injury

It's been 11 days and the game on Wednesday will make it 14 since since his injury. That's exactly the minimum amount of time. Benz, on the other hand, is still another week away unless they play him hurt (which they will).

I think they both should be on the bench and only use them if needed, let's give the others a chance, it's not worth it if we make it to the final and then we don't have our best players to compete considering we will face a much superior opponent

The final is a month away though... so if you can get through the semis, you can rest everyone for 3 weeks. So if they can play and remain mildly injured (not worse), you can get them up to 100% for the final.

Sport Ronaldo go re injured he isnt nursing the same injury but a different one that flared up

Time for the return of the James. It is his time to shine.

Benzema is close to joining the group having participated in solo training today. Not a fan of having both semi injured Ronaldo and Benzema for Wednesday's game. I could live with one but definitely not 2

I think Jese or Isco might start. I definitely think we should go for a 442. Less running for Ronaldo and an extra midfielder

@Cyborg
Looks like a good formation, but it will only work if Ronaldo does not stand in the middle waiting because we all know how ineffective he was early in the season when he played that position.
Ronaldo is also bad with his back to the post; that's well documented. For someone like that, coming up against Kompany, he wud be effectively shut out. I believe he should start on the left with Vasquez in the middle.
I'd even put james in the mix and have him supplying bale and ronaldo with final passes.

My midfield will be casemiro, modric and isco
Ronaldo james Bale.
We need an attacking midfielder not two central midfielders, but that will never happen.

Kroos will play no doubt about that .

Jese or Benzema is going to start at CF. Vasquez will come in later to help preserve the score once we score and since I doubt Ronaldo can go the full 90.... nor should he.

And we're not going to go for a shape we've never used before in leg 2 of a CL semi that we need to win... it would be dumb. 433 for sure.

Casemiro and Slowzema out for tomorrow. Ronaldo confirmed to start.

My fears coming to pass. Casemiro was unexpected, this changes things.

Both Benzema and Casemiro out? ManCity may actually have a chance now. I don't know how this tie will go down. The mistakes of the first leg and us not finishing it then just gained greater weight.
A test for isco and james. If they have a future here, now is the time to show up or shut up. If only we had the isco of old... we will need maximum workrate for the 2nd leg.

hmm casemiro out? that's interesting, so we're going to rely on kroos and modric to win the ball back? oh boy, forget training, i hope we can get zidane or one of the coaches for the whole day to just keep preaching defend defend defend defend to whatever midfield we put out

Casemiro being out is very bad news for us. We should absolutely go for a 442 now with Lucas and Isco

pepe to start in midfield??

varane partnering ramos

I do not want to see Pepe or Ramos in the midfield.

Pepe-Ramos will get raped, per usual, if they don't have DM support in front of them. I think we need to put one of our CBs as a DM. Not Pepe. Ramos maybe although he'd be a red card candidate lol.

The other option is to ask Marcelo to stay back and actually defend.

The only way Ramos will work as a DM is if City decide to park the bus the entire game.

Usually I'd be like sure that's what Pellegrini would do but this season I can't sure. If city comes out to play and look for that away goal early, Ramos will be a huge liability in the mid.

We should put Lucas on Marcelo's side to help him defensively

last time we played Ramos in CL against juve it was a complete disaster. Modric-Kroos-Isco and kross fingers we outscore them

modric-kroos-isco
bale-ronaldo-lucas

We got this guys.