Before kickoff today Man City fans were praying there wouldn’t be a repeat of the 2-0 home defeat at this stage of the Champions League last year. Man City fans are the butt of many people’s jokes due to the fact they sometimes fail to fill the gigantic Etihad stadium, but their support can be faulted today as they came out in force to cheer their team on. As expected, Neymar, Suarez and Messi all started which had a lot of fans worried before a ball was even kicked.
The City faithful would have taken some satisfaction from the opening minutes of the game as their players pushed forward, this gave the impression that they came to play and not sit back. However Barcelona came with the same attitude and were passing forward with great ease.
There was some early indications that Man City brought their A Game, with Dzeko making some impressive runs some creative play from Sergio Aguero. Macherano gave away a silly free kick at the edge of the Barcelona area and was very lucky not to get booked.
Unfortunately for fans of the English club the positive signs their team were showing were in vein as Barcelona stepped it up a gear and City were defenseless. Luis Suarez could have had a hat trick within half an hour, just missing a close chance in between the two goals he scored.
Going in to the game there was some criticism of the former Liverpool man has he only has a few goals in his first season at the Catalan. He silenced those critics in the 16th minute when he smashed the ball past helpless Joe Harte after some awful defending from City.
If the first goal was poor defending, the second goal was just sublime attacking. Messi dribbled past the Man City defense, doing some terrific work to avoid a slide tackle before playing the ball out to Jordi Alba who crossed it in to Suarez and the striker toe poked it home.
The tie seemed to be put to bed before the half was over with Barcelona in cruise control. Man City were helpless after Barcelona got a foot hold in the game. The English club did their best to get forward in the closing stages of the game but their efforts didn’t amount to anything.
Man City really came out to play in the second half, trying their best to reduce the deficit. Sergio Aguero came extremely close following some neat play up front, but his shot just curled past the keeper and the post.
Aguero continued his work rate throughout the first 20 minutes of the second half, his dribbles in thee final third lead to a handful of corners for the English club but unfortunately for them they didn’t amount to anything.
All the City pressure paid off as the Argentine striker was rewarded for his hard work when a ball broke in the box, Aguero did extremely well to beat Pique to the ball before smashing it home.
Tension in the stadium was rising as City pushed forward and Barcelona broke forward on the counter attack. The crowd voiced their opinion of Luis Suarez when he seemed to go down pretty easily.
There was yet another twist to this compelling tale as Man City’s Gael Clichy was given a second yellow card for a foolish high foot when Dani Alves was going nowhere. It is the third time Man City have gotten a player sent off in three games against Barcelona.
Following the red car we seemed to be in the unusual situation where both teams were satisfied with the 2-1 score, hoping to bring it to the next game and fight another day. Both teams knew that another goal conceded would dramatically change the face of the tie.
As the game went on it was only Barcelona who had any attacking prowess with the 10 men of Man City being pinned back as far as their own box for the majority of the closing stages of the game. Any time either team seemed to be breaking away the opposition would take them down and receive a yellow card. It was all very scrappy.
Lionel Messi had a goal disallowed when he was offside by the width of an eye lash, he hadn’t heard the whistle and his finish was a stereotypical Lionel Messi dink chip over the falling Joe Harte.
The game seemed to be petering out until Messi was taken down by Zabaleta in the box. Man City’s hearts were in their mouth as the Argentine stepped up to take it. To the shock and awe of the footballing world Messi took a horrible penalty and Joe Harte parried it out, Messi also failed to convert the rebound in the last action of the game. How crucial could that miss turn out to be? Only time will tell.
Over all Barcelona deserved their victory and it could have been by more, the ten men of Man City should feel lucky they are only down by one goal going in to the second league.
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