David Silva recited the party line but it came back to haunt him. “Beating Barcelona would be like a coming of age for Manchester City, very important for our confidence and international recognition,” he said before a 2-0 defeat that showed the most expensive team in England to be inferior to the most illustrious side in Spain.
The City manifesto, with its billion quid worth of promises, was torn apart by Barcelona once Martín Demichelis’ dismissal reduced Manuel Pellegrini’s team to 10.
They aimed high but finished low, with only the slimmest hope of reversing this 2-0 deficit. “The referee was not impartial to both teams,” alleged Pellegrini, abandoning his usual diplomacy and failing to disguise the gap in class.
Silva was typically articulate. But could City be as eloquent with the ball against a club who like to trap opponents like flies in webs? If this tie failed to tempt Sheikh Mansour to lay down his remote control and rush to Manchester it held the rest of us in awe. One mistake by Demichelis, though, brought City’s hopes crashing. What now for them? A struggle to regain the Premier League title and perhaps solace in the Cups.
These two sides were not mirror images of one another. This was a clash between an established artistic tradition and one still newly born.
Barcelona completed 753 passes to City’s 325. A late strike by Dani Alves surely pushed the tie beyond City’s reach and sent Pellegrini over the edge. His suggestion that Sweden is too much of a backwater to supply referees for games of this size was bizarre. It is the quiet ones you have to watch.
The facts that were there at the start were still intact at the end.
Barcelona have won four European crowns. Manchester City had never been to the last 16 of the Champions League. In the first competitive fixture between the two clubs City had no hope of matching the Dutch-Catalan model that has given us glorious football or “sterile domination” (Arsène Wenger’s phrase) – depending on your standpoint.
Nor did they try. Instead City were true to themselves, relying on the power of Vincent Kompany, Yaya Touré and Alvaro Negredo to blast through challenges and counter-attack when Barcelona’s pretty play broke down. But with only 10 men after the red card for Demichelis the mission was doomed.
For 15 minutes City fell into a trap Sir Alex Ferguson diagnosed in some of his Manchester United teams across town. They joined Barcelona on the carousel of relentless ball rotation. Their eyes whirred and their legs carried them backwards. They are only human. Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta arrive with an aura that would discourage anyone. Their brilliance is drilled into our brains. But when the shock wore off, City began to understand that the Lilliputians were not invincible.
Gerard Piqué, the former Manchester United centre-back, had warned: “OK, if it’s not Messi’s day, we have Neymar, we have Pedro, we have Alexis [Sánchez].” In the event Neymar and Pedro started on the bench.
Contradicting his own promise not to compromise on City’s own 4-4-2 formation, Pellegrini came down from idealism’s high ground, fielding a strong five-man midfield, with Silva furthest forward behind Negredo, who used his prize-fighterly frame to intimidate Javier Mascherano.
However much City have spent, Messi was always going to cast the brightest glow of all the talent on show. For him the landmarks multiply. His 337 goals for Barcelona are a record for a single Spanish club (the previous best belonged to Telmo Zarra, with 335). His brace on Saturday lifted him above the great Alfredo Di Stefano, on 228 in La Liga, where Messi is now level with Raúl Gonzalez and trails only Hugo Sánchez (234) and Zarra (251), who can kiss goodbye to his record.
The “worst Barcelona of many, many years” according to Jose Mourinho were still able to start with Messi, Alexis and Iniesta across the forward line, and with Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Cesc Fabregas the midfield three. They still won 2-0. Hardly dystopia. Mourinho’s point – heavily exaggerated – was that the golden age of tiki-taka has passed.
This Barcelona side hit more long passes than the one who eclipsed Manchester United at Wembley three years ago, but they still tend to land on shoelaces.
The passing cycles are shorter; the ball is shifted with more intent. The virtue they strive for is greater variety. But the magical part of their play remains the sudden burst of acceleration or the pass round the corner: all delivered at paralysing speed.
It was one such flash of activity that removed Demichelis from the action as Iniesta poked a wicked pass for Messi to run onto, and Demichelis mistimed his challenge by seconds, hooking the foot of the world No 2 (behind Cristiano Ronaldo), thus drawing a red card and a penalty kick, which Messi converted.
Behind Joe Hart’s goal Barcelona supporters bounced and bawled.
These are the fractions that turn a decent performance into a retrieving mission. Ten City players were now chasing the game. Pellegrini took off Jesús Navas and Aleksandar Kolarov and sent on Samir Nasri and Joleon Lescott. The relentless pressure of Barcelona’s passing often produces these outcomes.
Somebody cracks, as Demichelis did. Far more expectation was loaded on to City than will be faced by Arsenal against Bayern Munich. Yet these are the stakes at this level. The vast scale of Abu Dhabi’s investment leaves no hiding place, however illustrious the opposition.
The brains trust here may be lifting some of Barca’s best ideas (at the academy, especially) but that is not the same as outright mimicking. City exist in the Premier League most of the time, not Europe, and must build a team for that purpose as much as continental domination.
Besides: Barcelona are un-copyable. Xavi, Iniesta and Messi are a golden combination of the sort that comes along once in a generation. Now they are supported by Neymar, Brazil’s most gifted player. The tie feels dead. The natural order showed itself.
The City manifesto, with its billion quid worth of promises, was torn apart by Barcelona once Martín Demichelis’ dismissal reduced Manuel Pellegrini’s team to 10.
They aimed high but finished low, with only the slimmest hope of reversing this 2-0 deficit. “The referee was not impartial to both teams,” alleged Pellegrini, abandoning his usual diplomacy and failing to disguise the gap in class.
Silva was typically articulate. But could City be as eloquent with the ball against a club who like to trap opponents like flies in webs? If this tie failed to tempt Sheikh Mansour to lay down his remote control and rush to Manchester it held the rest of us in awe. One mistake by Demichelis, though, brought City’s hopes crashing. What now for them? A struggle to regain the Premier League title and perhaps solace in the Cups.
These two sides were not mirror images of one another. This was a clash between an established artistic tradition and one still newly born.
Barcelona completed 753 passes to City’s 325. A late strike by Dani Alves surely pushed the tie beyond City’s reach and sent Pellegrini over the edge. His suggestion that Sweden is too much of a backwater to supply referees for games of this size was bizarre. It is the quiet ones you have to watch.
The facts that were there at the start were still intact at the end.
Barcelona have won four European crowns. Manchester City had never been to the last 16 of the Champions League. In the first competitive fixture between the two clubs City had no hope of matching the Dutch-Catalan model that has given us glorious football or “sterile domination” (Arsène Wenger’s phrase) – depending on your standpoint.
Nor did they try. Instead City were true to themselves, relying on the power of Vincent Kompany, Yaya Touré and Alvaro Negredo to blast through challenges and counter-attack when Barcelona’s pretty play broke down. But with only 10 men after the red card for Demichelis the mission was doomed.
For 15 minutes City fell into a trap Sir Alex Ferguson diagnosed in some of his Manchester United teams across town. They joined Barcelona on the carousel of relentless ball rotation. Their eyes whirred and their legs carried them backwards. They are only human. Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta arrive with an aura that would discourage anyone. Their brilliance is drilled into our brains. But when the shock wore off, City began to understand that the Lilliputians were not invincible.
Gerard Piqué, the former Manchester United centre-back, had warned: “OK, if it’s not Messi’s day, we have Neymar, we have Pedro, we have Alexis [Sánchez].” In the event Neymar and Pedro started on the bench.
Contradicting his own promise not to compromise on City’s own 4-4-2 formation, Pellegrini came down from idealism’s high ground, fielding a strong five-man midfield, with Silva furthest forward behind Negredo, who used his prize-fighterly frame to intimidate Javier Mascherano.
However much City have spent, Messi was always going to cast the brightest glow of all the talent on show. For him the landmarks multiply. His 337 goals for Barcelona are a record for a single Spanish club (the previous best belonged to Telmo Zarra, with 335). His brace on Saturday lifted him above the great Alfredo Di Stefano, on 228 in La Liga, where Messi is now level with Raúl Gonzalez and trails only Hugo Sánchez (234) and Zarra (251), who can kiss goodbye to his record.
The “worst Barcelona of many, many years” according to Jose Mourinho were still able to start with Messi, Alexis and Iniesta across the forward line, and with Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Cesc Fabregas the midfield three. They still won 2-0. Hardly dystopia. Mourinho’s point – heavily exaggerated – was that the golden age of tiki-taka has passed.
This Barcelona side hit more long passes than the one who eclipsed Manchester United at Wembley three years ago, but they still tend to land on shoelaces.
The passing cycles are shorter; the ball is shifted with more intent. The virtue they strive for is greater variety. But the magical part of their play remains the sudden burst of acceleration or the pass round the corner: all delivered at paralysing speed.
It was one such flash of activity that removed Demichelis from the action as Iniesta poked a wicked pass for Messi to run onto, and Demichelis mistimed his challenge by seconds, hooking the foot of the world No 2 (behind Cristiano Ronaldo), thus drawing a red card and a penalty kick, which Messi converted.
Behind Joe Hart’s goal Barcelona supporters bounced and bawled.
These are the fractions that turn a decent performance into a retrieving mission. Ten City players were now chasing the game. Pellegrini took off Jesús Navas and Aleksandar Kolarov and sent on Samir Nasri and Joleon Lescott. The relentless pressure of Barcelona’s passing often produces these outcomes.
Somebody cracks, as Demichelis did. Far more expectation was loaded on to City than will be faced by Arsenal against Bayern Munich. Yet these are the stakes at this level. The vast scale of Abu Dhabi’s investment leaves no hiding place, however illustrious the opposition.
The brains trust here may be lifting some of Barca’s best ideas (at the academy, especially) but that is not the same as outright mimicking. City exist in the Premier League most of the time, not Europe, and must build a team for that purpose as much as continental domination.
Besides: Barcelona are un-copyable. Xavi, Iniesta and Messi are a golden combination of the sort that comes along once in a generation. Now they are supported by Neymar, Brazil’s most gifted player. The tie feels dead. The natural order showed itself.
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