City’s semi-final innocence meets maturity of Madrid

Manchester City v Real Madrid

Champions League semi-final

Kick off: 7.45pm

TV3 from 7.30pm, BT Sport Europe from 7pm

When it comes to experience in this kind of match, there is no contest between Manchester City and Real Madrid. The hosts had never made it to the quarter-finals of the European Cup before they knocked out Paris Saint-Germain, so they are once again treading new ground, while Real Madrid are playing in the semi-finals for the 27th time.

Zinedine Zidane says his team are hitting top form but their result and performance against Rayo Vallecano at the weekend suggest they are far from infallible. They conceded two early goals away to the relegation-threatened club, before coming back to win 3-2 and secure their ninth consecutive win in the league.

Manchester City can also take some heart from the fact they conceded two early goals in the away leg of what had looked like a predictable quarter-final tie against Wolfsburg. Despite their run of impressive results and comebacks, Real Madrid have been unconvincing on the road for some time; they have only kept one clean sheet in an away match since November and that was against a Roma team that wasted a number of clear chances.

Manuel Pellegrini will know his team must score on Tuesday night, even though his much-maligned defence has improved of late, keeping seven clean sheets in their last 11 games. In-form Sergio Agüero will surely have a key role to play and the former Atlético Madrid striker would love to dump their city rivals out of the competition. Agüero has scored in each of his last three home appearances against Real Madrid, including the only meeting between these two sides at the Etihad, a 1-1 draw in 2012.

Gareth Bale was the hero for Madrid at the weekend and he has the highest rating for the club in La Liga – with 18 goals and 10 assists in just 21 appearances – but he has not scored yet in the Champions League this season. While Bale has been directly involved in a goal every 56 minutes in the league that figure goes up to 73 minutes in the Champions League.

Even if City keep Bale quiet, they will still have to deal with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, who are are "100%" fit according to Zidane. Ronaldo is well on course to break his own Champions League scoring record of 17 in one season, though only five of his 16 goals in the competition have come away from the Bernabéu.