Real Madrid can lose the chance to earn more than $70 million in prize money if it fails to beat Manchester City in the Champions League playoffs on Wednesday, as explained by official UEFA figures and SPORT.
The 15-time winners of Europe’s elite competition go into a second leg meeting with the Premier League kings boasting a 3-2 advantage guaranteed through a comeback victory at the Etihad last week.
City manager Pep Guardiola quipped at his press conference that the Mancunians have just a 1% chance of going through, yet the FC Barcelona legend’s opposite number in the Madrid dugout Carlo Ancelotti suggested the Catalan is attempting to play mind games at his prematch press conference to preview the showdown on Tuesday.
“I’m going to ask him tomorrow before the game,” Ancelotti said. “He thinks he has more [of a chance], just as we don’t think we have 99%. We think we have a small advantage, [and we need to] take advantage of it and play the same game as in the first leg, which went well.
One thing is for sure, Madrid is known for going into the second installment of UCL knockout ties with an advantage, which it has then squandered to make things difficult for itself explained by Ancelotti as a “psychological issue”.
“This is a psychological issue, which we take into account. It’s happened many times, but it’s also hard to fix. If you say that you approach the game as a 0-0 it’s silly, nobody believes you, because you can’t change the 3-2. What you can change is the approach of the match, not make calculations. But you can’t forget that you have an advantage,” Ancelotti stressed.
In the run up to kick off, it has become clear that there is more than just the chance to play the last 16 on the line for the winner.
Thus far in the edition of the 2024/2025, Madrid has pocketed $39 million (€37.25 million) and can add $11.5 million (€11 million) to that amount if it beats City.
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Reaching the quarterfinals is worth an extra €12.5 million, with €15 million awarded to the four semifinalsts and €18.5 million forthcoming for the finalists.
The winner of the UCL, which Madrid was most recently in 2022 and 2024, gets €6.5 million thrown its way, while participating in the UEFA Super Cup brings a €4 million payday.
Though there is still a long way to go for Madrid to secure these separate bonuses, losing to City of course means that there is no chance at all to do so.
