Soccer

Champions League: Manchester City Dumped by Barcelona

Fresh Videos

By

Manchester City demoralized against Barcelona

Getty Images

The Champions League brought us the second and final leg of the Round of 16 between Barcelona and Manchester City. One team ended up winning again, while the other team gave it their all, but once again proved insufficient.

This was the first-ever appearance by Manchester City in the Round of 16 of the UCL, whereas Barcelona have been here plenty of times. That difference of experience proved too strong for the English side as they once again fell, this time 2-1 in Spain after losing the first leg 2-0 at home three weeks ago.

Lionel Messi has clearly been feeling healthy as he ran all around the final third. making life extremely difficult for the Premier League side. He along with Jordi Alba, Andres Iniesta and Dani Alves deserve plaudits for their performance tonight as they made the least amount of errors and played their game successfully. Messi and Alves scored their goals.

City played a decent game as James Milner, Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta and Edin Dzeko were the most threatening players for the team. Zabaleta ran up and down the right flank while missing a decent chance, and Dzeko was robbed of a header by keeper Victor Valdes. Vincent Kompany played decently at center-back while heading home their only goal at the other end.

With this loss, City now only have the opportunity to achieve a league and cup double. They lost their chances of winning the FA Cup when they lost to Wigan Athletic over the weekend, and now they just lost to Barcelona in the UCL. Winning the Premier League is possible, and they already have been crowned League Cup champions.

Barcelona should hope to avoid Bayern Munich in the rest of the campaign as they lost 7-0 on aggregate a year ago to the German champions. If they were to face the Germans again this season, they could potentially allow more goals as their defense and midfield have not been working too well together. However, they will not be shutout by them as Neymar and Messi are slowly but surely forming a formidable partnership up top with the help of other wingers.

Share Tweet
Trending Now on