City Xtra
·21 gennaio 2025
City Xtra
·21 gennaio 2025
UEFA have now confirmed the list of match officials to take charge of Manchester City’s penultimate outing in the league phase of this season’s Champions League.
Pep Guardiola and his players find themselves at serious risk of elimination at the first hurdle of this season’s competition following a string of hugely underwhelming results that have left them languishing in 22nd coming into the final two matches of the league phase.
A 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Sporting CP in November was followed by a damning 3-3 draw at home to Feyenoord, despite holding a three-goal advantage over the Dutch side heading into the final 15 minutes of the contest.
It was then a trip to Italy for Manchester City as they succumbed to a 2-0 away defeat to Juventus, meaning that the club will almost certainly have to win both of their final two matches to ensure a play-off place for the last-16 at a very minimum.
At that is no easy task either, with Manchester City travelling to face Paris Saint-Germain away from home this week, before welcoming Club Brugge to the Etihad Stadium on the final matchday next week.
Ahead of the meeting between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, UEFA have now announced the list of match officials to oversee proceedings at the Parc des Princes!
UEFA have confirmed this week that widely-respected Polish referee, Szymon Marciniak will oversee proceedings from the centre of the Parc des Princes pitch between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
The 44-year-old official will be taking charge of his fourth league phasing match in the Champions League so far this season, having already overseen a PSG contest once as they were beaten 1-2 at home by Atletico Madrid in early November.
In total, there have been four previous Manchester City matches that have been officiated by Marciniak, including two finals that have played a significant role in the constantly-developing history of Pep Guardiola’s tenure at the Etihad Stadium.
While the Polish referee took charge of the 4-0 win over Fluminense in the FIFA Club World Cup final of 2023, he most notably led proceedings in Istanbul as a single Rodri goal secured Manchester City their first-ever UEFA Champions League crown with a 1-0 win over Inter.
In addition to those two matches, the 4-0 win over Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League semi-final second-leg over Real Madrid was also overseen by Marciniak in 2023, plus a 0-4 away win over Feyenoord in 2017.
Accompanying Szymon Marciniak at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday night will be fellow Polish officials, Tomasz Listkiewicz and Adam Kupsik – who have been appointed into the roles of assistant referees.
Overseeing the contest between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City from the role of VAR will be Video Assistant Referee, Tomasz Kwiatkowski of Poland, accompanied by Portugal’s Tiago Martins as Assistant Video Assistant Referee.
Finally, UEFA have confirmed that Damian Kos will complete an all-Polish team of match officials at the Parc des Princes this week as he steps into the position of Fourth Official.