The Numbers Game: Floundering Alonso reunited with Guardiola, Mbappe faces Haaland

Real Madrid and Manchester City have become very familiar with one another in recent years.

Indeed, Wednesday's meeting at the Santiago Bernabeu on matchday six of the Champions League will be the 15th time they have faced off in the competition.

Since their first encounter, a 3-2 Madrid victory all the way back in September 2012, this is the most-played fixture in the Champions League.

And there is plenty at stake, too. While Xabi Alonso's hosts have 12 points from five games in Europe's premier club competition, City are two points back after a surprise home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen last time out.

So neither team can think of themselves as assured of a top-eight finish and automatic qualification for the last 16.

Ahead of this week's standout Champions League fixture, we used Opta data to pick out the players and storylines to watch. 

What's expected?

The Opta supercomputer has run 10,000 data-led simulations of this game, and Madrid were the victors in 38.2% of them. But it is expected to be a close affair. 

City claimed the three points in 37.7% of the sims, with 24.1% finishing level. 

In the predictive model's season projections, City are assigned a 10% chance of winning the Champions League for a second time. That is the fourth-highest percentage of any team, behind Arsenal (22%), Bayern Munich (18%) and Paris Saint-Germain (13%). 

Madrid are sixth-favourites to win a record-extending 16th European crown, with their 5% chance also putting them behind arch-rivals Barcelona (6%).

Los Blancos, of course, ended City's European dreams last season, eliminating them from the play-off round with a 6-3 aggregate success (3-2 win away, 3-1 win at home).

Those two defeats are as many as City had experienced in their previous 11 games against the Spanish side combined (W4 D5 L2).

Former Barcelona boss Guardiola, meanwhile, has faced Madrid on 27 previous occasions. Guardiola is winless in the last four of those matches (D2 L2), though he has never gone five in succession without beating Madrid.

After only losing one of his first nine away games against Madrid as a manager (W6 D2), Guardiola is winless in his last four trips to face Los Blancos (D2 L2), with his City team conceding 10 goals across those four matches (2.5 per game).

Under-pressure Alonso faces former mentor

While Madrid and City are familiar foes, this will be the first managerial meeting between two former midfield maestros for Spain, in Guardiola and Alonso.

Guardiola coached Alonso near the tail end of the latter's playing days, with the duo working together at Bayern Munich between 2014 and 2016.

Alonso made 79 appearances as a player under Guardiola (W58 D12 L9), with only Manuel Neuer (101), Robert Lewandowski (100) and Thomas Muller (97) making more appearances for Bayern in that period.

In those 2014-15 and 2015-16 campaigns, Guardiola and Alonso won two Bundesliga titles and the DFB-Pokal together. 

While he is far from a Pep clone, Alonso has certainly taken some inspiration from his former boss, and their reunion makes for an intriguing sub-plot to a rivalry that has already served up some Champions League classics in recent seasons.

Guardiola has four other former charges who have gone into top-flight management. He coached Vincent Kompany at Manchester City, while both Enzo Maresca and Mikel Arteta were his assistants before stepping into management themselves. Xavi, of course, was a key part of Guardiola's success at Barcelona.

Guardiola and Xavi have not gone head-to-head in a competitive match, but he has faced Kompany, Maresca and Arteta on multiple occasions.

Arsenal boss Arteta, as one would expect, is the one Guardiola has faced the most out of that trio. They have gone up against each other 16 times, with Guardiola winning nine of those matches (56.2%). Only Sean Dyche (14 with Burnley) has lost more games to Guardiola's City as the manager of a single club.

Guardiola went up against Kompany's Burnley three times before the former centre-back was poached by Bayern, with City winning all of those fixtures by an aggregate score of 12-1. City have only faced Maresca's Chelsea twice, but they won on both occasions.

Alonso has come under pressure early on in his reign, and Sunday's stunning 2-0 defeat to Celta Vigo, which saw both Fran Garcia and Alvaro Carreras sent off, was a new low for his Madrid team.

Since beating Valencia 4-0 on November 1, Madrid have only won two of their seven games across all competitions, drawing three and losing two, while scoring 10 goals (1.4 per game) and conceding nine (1.3).

That run has come after they won 13 of their first 14 matches to start the campaign (one defeat), scoring 34 goals (2.4 per game) and conceding 11 (0.8), and Madrid are now four points adrift of Barcelona at the top of LaLiga.

Another defeat – particularly against an old nemesis in Guardiola – would do nothing to quieten the heavy criticism Alonso is already facing. 

City prove they are no one-man team

City, by contrast, head to the Spanish capital buoyed by the fact they have closed the gap to Arsenal at the top of the Premier League to just two points, following their 3-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday.

Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and Phil Foden were on target in that match, and City have had to share the goals out lately, due to Erling Haaland's form dipping ever so slightly.

Now, the Norwegian did score his 100th Premier League goal during last week's 5-4 victory at Fulham, so things have not exactly been disastrous for him lately.

But he has failed to score in four of City's five games since the November international break, having started all of those but the Leverkusen loss, when he was limited to 26 minutes off the bench.

Haaland has only scored one of City's last 14 goals across all competitions, having netted 19 of their first 36 to start the campaign. 

While Guardiola will want to see Haaland get back to his fearsome best, he might be somewhat pleased to see his team dispel the notion that they are overly reliant on the Norwegian.

Several members of Haaland's supporting cast have stepped up, with Foden chief among them.

Foden has had a hand in nine goals in seven starts for City across all competitions since the start of November (seven goals, two assists), more than any other Premier League player during this period. 

In fact, among all players from Europe's top five leagues, only Kylian Mbappe (11) and Deniz Undav (10) have supplied more goal involvements since the start of last month. 

Rayan Cherki made his case for a regular starting spot against Sunderland, registering two assists including a wonderful rabona cross for Foden's goal, while Jeremy Doku has also been excellent in recent weeks. 

Since the start of November, Doku has created more chances from open play than any other player from Europe's top five divisions (24, all competitions), while only Lamine Yamal (42/85) has completed or attempted more dribbles than the Belgian (30/56).

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Real Madrid – Kylian Mbappe

While City have seen several players step up in attack lately, Madrid have been almost entirely reliant on Mbappe.

Since the end of the Club World Cup, Mbappe has scored 25 goals in all competitions for Los Blancos, with their next-most prolific player being Vinicius Junior on five goals. Mbappe has scored 56.8% of their total goals in all competitions this season (25/44).

Mbappe has scored nine goals in five games in the Champions League this term; the joint-most by a Madrid player in their first five appearances in a single edition, along with Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013-14 (nine).

The France star, who netted all four of Madrid's goals in their 4-3 win at Olympiacos on matchday five, also has a fantastic record against City.

He has been directly involved in eight goals in seven games against them in the Champions League (seven goals, one assist); only Lionel Messi has had a hand in more against the Citizens in the competition (nine in eight appearances – seven goals, two assists). 

Mbappe's haul against City includes four goals across two legs in last season's play-off round, with the superstar striker scoring in the dramatic 3-2 triumph at the Etihad Stadium before netting a hat-trick in Madrid's 3-1 home victory.

Mbappe has also registered 202 attacking sequence involvements this season (since the end of the Club World Cup) at least 59 more than any team-mate (Vinicius has 143).

Manchester City – Erling Haaland 

City have had their troubles defensively this season, conceding 22 goals from 20.6 expected goals against (xGA), so keeping Mbappe quiet will be no easy feat.

Indeed, given Mbappe is the second-highest scorer in Europe this term, then perhaps the best form of defence for City, is offence.

And in Haaland, they, of course, have a goal machine of their own. Haaland has plundered 20 goals in all competitions this season for City. Among players from Europe's top five leagues, only Mbappe (25) and Harry Kane (28) have netted more in 2025-26.

The Norway international has scored more goals in the Champions League than any other player since his debut campaign in 2019-20 (54). 

In fact, two of the only three players who have netted 50+ goals in the competition in this period could both square off in this match, with Mbappe also netting 50 times since then (Robert Lewandowski being the other).