The social networks of Real Madrid and Manchester City fans lamented the draw for the Champions League round of 16. The rest of the football fans celebrated. For the sixth time in seven years, the two richest clubs in current football will face each other in a knockout stage of the most important club tournament in the world, in what has been considered the “classic of classics” on a global level.
The first leg, in Madrid, will be this Wednesday (11), at 5pm (Brasília time).
In the Deloitte consultancy ranking, which measures the revenue of the biggest club powers, Real and City alternated in first place between 2021 and 2024. In 2025, City fell to sixth place, after an early elimination in the Champions League against the Spanish team.
For the second year in a row, the Madrid club exceeded one billion euros in revenue (around R$6 billion), triple that of Flamengo, the richest association in Brazil. Real Madrid is the biggest winner of the Champions League, with 15 titles won. Six of these victories have come in the last 12 years.
Manchester City, in turn, has established itself as a dominant force in the richest and most important national championship in the world, the Premier League. There have been six titles in the last eight editions. In the current season, City competes for the trophy point-to-point with Arsenal. At the moment they are behind in the table, but they have one game in hand, and the direct confrontation between them will be at City’s home.
This Wednesday’s match pits different football philosophies against each other. City is led by an authorial coach, the Spaniard Pep Guardiola, who has been at the club for ten years, who choreographs attack and defense moves down to the smallest detail. Real Madrid is betting on improvisation and the individual talent of stars like Vinicius Junior and Mbappé – which is doubtful for the game, alternating coaches who act as ego managers. The bet this time is Álvaro Arbeloa, former commander of the club’s youth categories.
The clash between Real and City also represents a passing of the baton in the economics of sport. Real is the pioneer of today’s multicultural and globalized clubs. Under the presidency of Santiago Bernabéu, in the 1950s, the team brought international stars such as Hungarian Ferenc Puskas, Argentine Alfredo Di Stefano and Brazilian Didi. Bernabéu was also one of the creators of the continental tournament that gave rise to the Champions League.
Half a century later, Manchester City inaugurated a new era on the path to globalized football. Acquired in 2008 by a fund from the United Arab Emirates, the club – which was a medium power in English football – became a title machine and an international franchise. Clubs such as New York City, Girona, from Spain, and Bahia, from Brazil are part of the City group. The strategy is to globalize the brand at the same time that satellites reveal talents for the mothership.
Real and City are also the most perfect translations of the phenomenon identified by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski in the book “Soccernomics”. Based on evidence, the two authors, experts in sports economics, show how the ability to generate astronomical revenues and pay huge salaries to players has been creating an imbalance in world football.
For some years now, the Deloitte ranking has been consolidating a “top 10” that represents football’s hyper-elite. Six of the highest-earning clubs in the world are English, which consolidates the Premier League as the most interesting national championship in the world – and gives the exact dimension of City’s achievement, hegemonic in a hyper-competitive dispute.
Real Madrid and Barcelona also appear every year in the “top 10”, which has transformed La Liga into a championship restricted to two superpowers.
Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain complete the “top 10”. The disparity between these two clubs and all the others in their respective countries ruined the fun of the German and French championships. Bayern have won 12 of the last 13 editions of the Bundesliga, while PSG have been crowned champions in eight of the last ten Ligue 1 matches.
In this hyper-concentrated scenario, the Champions League has become the only place where all the greats meet. This year, nine of the “top 10” are in the knockout stage, which raises the expectation of several direct confrontations. The winner of the “classic of classics” between Real Madrid and Manchester City will emerge as a natural favorite in the dispute. Nothing, however, is guaranteed. Other giants are lurking on the way to the final scheduled for May 30th in Budapest.
Clashes between Real and City in Champions League knockout stages
2019-20 – Round of 16
Real Madrid 1×2 Manchester City
Manchester City 2×1 Real Madrid
Manchester City classified
2021-2022 – Semifinal
Manchester City 4×3 Real Madrid
Real Madrid 3×1 Manchester City
Real Madrid classified
2022-2023 – Semifinal
Real Madrid 1×1 Manchester City
Manchester City 4×0 Real Madrid
Manchester City classified
2023-2024 – Quarterfinals
Real Madrid 3×3 Manchester City
Manchester City 1×1 Real Madrid
Real Madrid classified in the penalty shootout
2024-2025 – Knockout Playoff
Manchester City 2×3 Real Madrid
Real Madrid 3×1 Manchester City
Real Madrid classified
