Manchester City have spent more than £ 1 billion since 2008 in order to become one of the best clubs in the world. They have reached one of the first objectives towards ensuring that is the case by reaching the last 16 stage of the Champions league.
They will be playing against Barcelona in this stage of the competition this year. Even though they are still far-off from being considered as a big club, City manager Manuel Pellegrini says that it will not be long before the club are considered as one of the elite in the world.
He told the top soccer blog that City have everything in order to become the best in the world. City have already faced one of the top teams in Europe in the form of Bayern Munich in the group stages of the competition. Even though this ended in a defeat in the home leg, they managed to beat the current holders of the Champions league at the Allianz Arena in the final group match. Pellegrini says that there is no reason why City cannot go ahead and beat Barcelona, as the two teams come up against each other in the last 16 stage of the competition.
City are already the favourites to win the Premier league title this campaign.
“I think so. We are working every day more. We beat Bayern Munich already in Germany so I repeat this team has a lot of things to improve but I think we are not so far from the big teams. The only way to continue improving is to win titles. If you win titles it’s because you do the right things. All the big teams have good players also. The way we are working, maybe given time we are going to be a very strong team in Europe. I repeat for the first time we qualified for the round of 16,” said Pellegrini.