Manchester City swap Fiat for Ferrari in race for Champions League

Mancini confidence in stark contrast to Mourinho ahead of Madrid showdown

Madrid

view gallery VIEW GALLERY

Roberto Mancini talked up the possibility of a major power shift taking place at the Santiago Bernabeu tonight, with his Manchester City side now fully equipped to play in European football's fast lane.

Just as his opposite number at Real Madrid, Jose Mourinho, was casting doubt on the hunger of his players, Mancini said: "If you drive a Ferrari you can win. We used to drive a Fiat Cinquecento and then it's not so easy; now we are driving a Ferrari."

The Real Madrid coach was in far less effusive mood, admitting City would win what he referred to as "the big cup" – the Champions League – one day and expressed concerns over facing them in this season's first group match in the competition tonight, after what he called an "awful performance" from his side at the weekend.

"I can't compare the natural talent of my team at Inter with the natural talent here at Real Madrid but I also can't compare the hunger of my team at Inter with my team here," said the former Internazionale manager just 48 hours after savaging his players as they fell to their second defeat in the first four games of the season.

Mancini has no such motivational problems ahead of his second Champions League campaign. He even has a fully focused Carlos Tevez, who at this time last season threw his infamous touchline tantrum by refusing to warm up against Bayern Munich.

Mancini was asked what advice he might give Mourinho in dealing with a "sad" Cristiano Ronaldo. He joked: "If he wants to win La Liga again, maybe he should send Cristiano to Portugal for six months and maybe he can win it for a second time!"

Despite Ronaldo's complaints, Mourinho has other concerns with what he sees as a dressing room lacking the edge of previous seasons. "We have all won things, we have all had success in our careers," he said. "We all have the economic and professional stability and so there should be no need to wait to see how people react.

"We should be the first ones to motivate ourselves. No one puts pressure on me because I am the one who applies the pressure. No one motivates me. I am the one who motivates myself. I am the one who criticises myself when I am not performing as I should be and that is the way it should be."

Real Madrid were beaten by lowly Getafe in the second week of the season after drawing against Valencia at home. After their only win of the campaign against Granada, they lost to Seville at the weekend. In another comment directed at his players, Mourinho added: "Playing against City motivates me as much as playing against Getafe."

Fabio Coentrao and Luka Modric should come into Madrid's side for Marcelo and Mesut Ozil. And Mourinho said he believed his players would find their sense of team again for the most important game of the season so far.

He said: "My conviction is that tomorrow we will have a team. A solid, compact team that understands what the word team means. We might lack a bit of creativity, self-esteem or confidence because it is not easy playing against a side like City after the way we played at the weekend, and I am not going to kid anyone, we were awful."

He praised the job done by Mancini, although did not miss the opportunity to point out he won the league in his first season at Chelsea. He stopped short of saying City could win the Champions League this season.

"That must come from Roberto, he has to say yes they can win it. I am on the other side and I can say that we are contenders. But we put Manchester City in that group of big rivals for us. First there was [Claudio] Ranieri at Chelsea and then I arrived and we won the first league then came the cups and more titles and then Carlo [Ancelotti] came along and it carried on. Manchester City started with Mark Hughes and the spending started. Then Roberto comes in and does good work spending more money. I don't know if they can take it forward from here, but normally things will continue in the same direction and sooner or later they will win the big cup."

Having said that he wanted to take seven players off at half-time at the weekend, yesterday Mourinho had lightened up, remembering Real Madrid's former Welsh manager John Toshack: "I am not going to make seven changes. As one coach [Toshack] once said, the day of the defeat you would change seven or eight, by the middle of the week four or five and then in the next game you name the same team."

It all makes for a difficult first step on the road that leads to Wembley. Mourinho is prepared to put up with the contempt-breeding familiarity of a third season in order to land his third Champions League, while Real Madrid will stomach Mourinho for as long as it looks like he might take them all the way to their 10th European Cup.

 

Get Adobe Flash player

 



Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Caption competition
Caption competition
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Sport blogs

New day (slowly) rising – As Brasileirão gets underway, Brazilian football stumbles, rather than leaps into the future

The average Serie A crowd last year was 13,000 - comparable to Australia’s A-League.

by James Young

iBet: Mercedes and Hamilton to roar in Monaco

Monaco is a street circuit where driver ability is more important than anywhere else and if we take ...

by Gareth Purnell

On The Road at the Giro d’Italia: It sounds sadistic, but the team live for the mountain stages

Three weeks ago as I drove off the Eurostar, I remember thinking what a very long time it was until ...

by Martin Ayres

       
Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

Written on the body

Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

The Calvin report

Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

The Last Word

Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally