Manchester City Beat The Best Team In The World Insists Pep Guardiola

Messi was already upset before the incident after Barcelona lost their first ever group game in two years. They are experienced, they’re in the routine of winning trophies, of peaking in March and April when the biggest games come.

“But football is like this”.

“Our goal changed the game”.

It was a significant victory for City to beat one of the European giants and Aguero felt that the pressing tactics of boss Pep Guardiola unsettled Barcelona.

Nolito, who came on as a late second-half substitute, applauded his team’s fearless performance against a Barcelona side who had beaten them 4-0 two weeks earlier at the Camp Nou. Our players realised the bad moment in the game was over.

“So today is a good step”.

It was the landmark victory that Guardiola needed after a poor six-game run without victory.

“[I saw] nothing. I thought Messi said something to me but he didn’t, and then we [the other players] talked about other stuff”, Aguero told the reporters after the match.

With three minutes left for full-time, Mesut Ozil scored a fantastic individual goal to keep the Arsenal on top of the table where they sit alongside Paris Saint-Germain on 10 points from 4 matches, who won 2-1 away to Basel in Switzerland with a dramatic late victor of their own.

Barcelona’s Claudio Bravo was brought in to take his place; the Chile keeper believed by Guardiola to be more adept with the ball at his feet in order to help the team to pass out from the back.

City started the second half in the ascendancy and were soon ahead. They had a chance to score their second and if they had, then the game was done. With 10 men, it’s more than understandable that Guardiola’s side collapsed and, under pressure, they made several defensive mistakes.

Gundogan made it 4-0 for his second goal of the match.

“We haven’t talked. Whenever you lose you’re not very happy”, the City striker said. Those two-legged games are totally different from the group games because you can not afford to lose the first leg, whether it is home or away.

“I think that was one of the best first halves we’ve played, and on a stage like this and against hard opponent”. Barcelona are still top of the group but have to ensure they win their remaining fixtures to stay top.

“The first 40 minutes were for us, the following 50 were for them, and the result reflects that”. It was working, to an extent, and, perhaps, they grew over-confident in committing too many men forward, which allowed Neymar to counter so scintillatingly and set up Messi for the opener.