Man City 3-1 Barcelona
by James Nalton
at Eastlands

Sergio Aguero has revealed Manchester City’s secret to beating Barcelona on Tuesday night: pretending they were playing a different team.

A perfectly executed free kick from Kevin De Bruyne sandwiched between two Ilkay Gundogan strikes gave City a historic win.

Aguero said: “They’re a difficult team, obviously. If you give them the time and the space to think, they will beat you.

“You always have to respect Barca and any team would respect that but we had to pretend that it wasn’t Barca and try to play how we know, and win, which was the most important thing.”

It looked like it was going to be another one of those nights for City against their illustrious, seasoned and now familiar European opposition — who they hadn’t beaten in five previous attempts.

Raheem Sterling had an early penalty shout turned down when Barcelona centre back Samuel Umtiti stood on his foot and the crowd sensed another unlucky night. To make things worse, their winger was booked for diving.

City were on top in these early exchanges but it it was to be the incisive ruthlessness of a Barcelona counter-attack which opened the scoring.

The ball fell to Lionel Messi after his side successfully defended a City corner and the Argentinian immediately sent the ball left to Neymar. The forward dribbled deep into the City half before cutting inside returning the ball to his onrushing teammate, who tucked the ball past compatriot Willy Caballero.

Fouls and errors threatened to blight the game but despite this it remained an entertaining, gripping encounter.

Barcelona’s dominance grew as the half progressed but one particular error from their right-back Sergi Roberto gave the home side a lifeline.

Aguero intercepted Roberto’s wayward pass releasing Sterling who, instead of shooting, found Gundogan in a better position to his left and the German knocked the ball past Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

“We had a bad time after the error we made from the first goal,” said Barcelona boss Luis Enrique. “But when you concede a goal from that way it’s normally that you go through a bad period.”

Conversely, City were buoyed by the goal and just over five minutes into the second half, De Bruyne gave them the lead with a wicked free kick which wrong-footed Ter Stegen.

Barcelona then hit the bar through Andre Gomes before De Bruyne clipped a post at the other end but Gundogan’s goal following good work from a resurgent Jesus Navas down the right wing secured City’s much-needed win.

“Our victory today is so important,” City manager Pep Guardiola enthused after the game. “Now we have one more game to win.

“We got to know each other better tonight and we’re lucky that if we get through, we won’t get Barca in the next round.”