Manchester City 0 - 2 Barcelona: win at Etihad Stadium
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.
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