Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund: Champions League quarter-final – live!

Jude Bellingham: The teenager is just one of three Englishmen in the Dortmund squad. His team-mates Erling Haaland and Gio Reyna may not have declared for the country of their birth, but are as English as apologising for things that aren’t your fault, not apologising for things that are your fault and boring on about the weather. Haaland was born in Leeds, while Reyna is a Sunderland boy. Both emerged blinking into the world while their fathers played football in the Premier League.

Those teams: Raheem Sterling is a surprise omission from Manchester CIty’s starting line-up, while Phil Foden comes in as one of five changes to the City team that beat Leicester on Saturday. Bernardo Silva also comes in as part of what is likely to be an interchangable front three that also includes Kevin De Bruyne but no out and out striker. Joao Cancelo comes in for Benjamin Mendy, despite the left-back’s goalscoring exploits against Leicester, while John Stones and Ilkay Gundogan also return.

Edin Terzic makes three changes to the Dortmund side that lost their crunch Bundesliga match against Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday. Nico Schulz, Thomas Delaney and Thorgan Hazard are dropped to the bench, with Mateu Morey, Ansgar and Mahmoud coming in. It looks like 17-year-old Stourbridge boy Jude Bellingham will start on the right of a midfield three.

Edin Terzic speaks

“City are currently the strongest team in the world with incredible quality,” said Borussia Dortmund’s coach. “It’s an exciting task where we need to show our top performance across both matches. City will hold a lot of possession, we have to assume that tomorrow. They like to tire their opponents out in order to open up space. When we have the ball, we have to get going. That is when it becomes difficult to stop us.

Pep Guardiola speaks

“Maybe this season they’ve struggled to be consistent, but if you analyse the individual quality, then every player is fantastic,” said the Manchester City manager, upon being quizzed on the subject of tonight’s opponents. “We could talk about [Mats] Hummels, [Emre] Can, [Thomas] Meunier, [Mahmoud] Dahoud … everyone. [Erling] Haaland, [Jadon] Sancho, [Thorgan] Hazard, [Marco] Reus, [Julian] Brandt. The young players from the academy are fantastic players. They were able to beat Sevilla, who are a master team in knockout stages.

“When I analyse a team, I never see the table. It is a football game and it starts from 0-0. We have two legs and the team that plays better will go through. When I was in Munich, [Dortmund] were our big rivals. Every year we had to fight against them. We played three years, the first season with Jürgen Klopp and after with Thomas Tuchel. We played two times, the cup final.”

Early team news

Pep Guardiola has a full complement of players to choose from ahead of tonight’s game and given the vast depth of quality at his disposal, Mystic Meg herself would have trouble predicting the 11 players he’ll pick to start. Few if any media outlets agree on their predicted City starting line-up, but looking at the side he picked to face Leicester on Saturday, it would be no great surprise to see some or all of Phil Foden, Cancelo, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Raheem Sterling return to his attack. What is not in any doubt is that whatever team Guardiola sends out will be a very strong one.

Former City youngster Jadon Sancho has been ruled out of the first leg against his former club with a thigh problem, although his compatriot Jude Bellingham looks a likely starter for Borussia Dortmund. Midfielder Axel Witsel and defender Dan-Axel Zagadou are also sidelined with injury. Currently being hawked around Europe to the highest bidder by his agent Mino Raiola and father Alfie, Erling Haaland will spearhead Dortmund’s attack against his – dare we say it – future employers.