I agree with you that home matches will decide which team we see in the semi-finals. In the previous season, the Madrid team did not play well in the home match against Manchester City. The match was a 1-1 draw. And in the away match, Madrid lost by a huge margin of 4-0. In 2022, Madrid lost the awya match 4–3, but they made a great comeback in the home match and qualified for the final by winning the match 3–1. The team that performed well in the home matches of the previous two seasons qualified for the finals.
Both Real Madrid and Manchester City are strong teams. The bonding between the players is strong and their coaches are very experienced. So it is impossible to predict now which team will qualify for the semi-finals.
but that cannot be a benchmark for predictions that we will make because we will remember that there are a lot of changes every season and sometimes there are unexpected surprises even though everyone says away or home matches are the main cause of a team qualifying for the next round but in my opinion everyone It depends on the condition of the players and also depends on the strategy that each coach has.
It is indeed very difficult to determine who will qualify even though Man City and Madrid have met several times in the UCL, but the final result is still a mystery that is difficult to solve.
all I see right now is that Man City still has big ambitions after last season's success in beating Madrid, of course this season will also do the same, while Real Madrid is a popular team that holds the most titles in the UCL so good experiences or bad experiences can be an encouragement to can improve strategy or performance to qualify for the next round and on the one hand I know for sure that Ancelotti already knows Man City weaknesses so the match will be very fierce.
In the end, we will all only support our favorite teams because both teams have the same chance of qualifying.