20 April 2023 , 00:15
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Kevin De Bruyne immediately turned his focus to Manchester City's upcoming games after they knocked Bayern Munich out of the Champions League.
The Belgian played 88 minutes at the Allianz Arena, providing the assist for Erling Haaland's opening goal. Bayern equalised from the penalty spot late on, but it was a comfortable win on aggregate for City, who will face Real Madrid in the semi-finals.
Their 4-1 victory over Bayern on aggregate is an ominous sign for the other three teams remaining in the competition. Inter Milan will take on AC Milan in one of the blockbuster semi-finals, while City face Los Blancos.
The Premier League title challengers would be forgiven for celebrating their comfortable passage into the final four, knocking out one of the favourites to win the Champions League in the process.
But De Bruyne, who has played a key role in City's attempt to win the treble this season, is immediately putting his focus into Saturday's FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield United. He hailed Bayern as a top team and insisted City were good value for their win.
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"We go again, we go again. We know Bayern is top and I think in both games there's moment you're going to suffer. But as a team we defended really well, you can't stop them for 90 minutes but in the difficult moments we were there as a team," he told CBS Sports.
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De Bruyne created Erling Haaland's goal, which saw City progress to the semi-finals of the Champions League (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)"At the right moments we had our chances, scoring for 1-0 changed it all and I'm very proud of this team, we did very well against a top class team. Very happy to go back to the semis. I don't feel any different to last year.
"Last year we played really well and the last five minutes of the second game changed the outcome. Obviously everyone has a different opinion. This year we will try to minimise the mistakes and defensively we are very solid.
"I've got confidence in our team, Real is class also so we go again and hopefully the outcome will be ours this time. The team is on good form and I'm flowing with them, very happy with the form of the team and we need to keep going."
De Bruyne is confident City can put the demons of last season's semi-final defeat to Madrid behind them this time around. The Belgian midfielder did warn his side though they would have to prepare for a difficult test against Los Blancos.
“What happened last year, happened. You have to take it on the chin and move on. It happened and it doesn’t mean we didn’t play well for the majority of the two games," he added.
"But football is about details and it happens and you move on. If you play Champions League the quality is class, but we need to prepare ourselves to be ready for that, but we still have a couple of games in between.”