Manchester City chief football operations officer Brian Marwood believes that their Europa League Round of 32 tie against FC Porto will be an exciting one. City got kicked out of the Champions League after finishing third in a group that included giants like Bayern Munich and Napoli, and their already challenging season got worse after they were paired against holders FC Porto.
“It’s amazing isn’t it, to have drawn the holders,” he told Sky Sports. “We’ve gone through probably the hardest group in the Champions League, and we’re disappointed not to have got to the next stage and now we get the holders in the Europa League last 32.
“It’s a big game for the club and one that we’ll be taking seriously as Roberto [Mancini] said after we were knocked out of the Champions League.
“It is a tough schedule. The one thing we haven’t had to endure is going through the earlier rounds, where you do play an awful lot of games, as we have done in the past.
“That can be very hard, no matter how big your squad is. I think it’s something that we’ll certainly look forward to, Porto are a very attractive opposition as the holders.”
If City do get past the Portuguese champions, they will face either Sporting Lisbon or Legia Warsaw in the Round of 16. However, Marwood maintained that they should only focus on the clash against FC Porto for now.
I don’t think we can look beyond Porto,” he said. “Obviously the last 16 draw has been made, but we’ll leave that for another time and focus on Porto. “It’s going to be two games home and away amongst a lot of fixtures over the next three months and they’re all games we’re really looking forward to.
“We came into the season knowing we’d be in four competitions and we’ll go in to the New Year still in four competitions and that’s something the club are trying to build upon with the success in the FA Cup last year.”
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