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Sadio Mane is back in the Bayern Munich squad to face Manchester City on Wednesday with manager Thomas Tuchel calling on his side to produce a “miracle” as they seek to overturn the 3-0 deficit from the first leg.
Manchester City travel to the Allianz Arena in Munich as overwhelming favourites to make the semifinals of the Champions League, having won the first leg by a commanding 3-0 margin last week. Tuchel says it’ll take an incredible effort from everyone connected with the club to prevent a quarterfinal exit from the Champions League for the third season running.
“We need a miracle,” Tuchel said. “It would be a miracle actually.”
Tuchel added: “It’s hard, and it’s a huge mountain to climb. We need to believe. We believe in ourselves but we don’t want to be dreamers. Dreaming for me is close to sleeping and if we cannot do one thing, we cannot sleep for one second.
“We need to believe and make it happen by performance, team spirit and energy — we have ourselves and team, we have teammates, spectators who are ready to fight with us and then we need to have a realistic level.
“If you look at the top of the huge mountain, you may feel overwhelmed so we take it step by step, half by half, and the challenge is tough enough, we don’t need to make it tougher by looking at the size of the mountain. We will start the journey and be ready to go all the way.”
Tuchel will look to Mane for inspiration with the ex-Liverpool forward back in the mix after he was suspended by the club for the weekend’s 1-1 draw with Hoffenheim. Mane was stood down for one match and fined by Bayern after an altercation with teammate Leroy Sane following the defeat in Manchester last week.
But Tuchel says the club have drawn a line underneath the incident and Mane is in the frame to play Wednesday.
“Sadio is in the squad, we are not talking about the incident anymore — the decision was taken, we will have to wait until tomorrow to see if he starts or not, or off the bench,” Tuchel said.