Manchester (VG) (Manchester City – RB Leipzig 3–2) It looked bleak for a long time. But the remarkable turnaround initiated by Erling Braut Haaland (23) has ensured that City’s star gallery can breathe a sigh of relief and actually call themselves group winners.
Because in just over half an hour during the second half of Tuesday night’s Champions League match, goals from Erling Braut Haaland, Phil Foden and Julian Alvarez overturned RB Leipzig’s 2-0 first-half lead.
Result and performance to However, the break was hard to believe for viewers, journalists and players.
– The first half is the worst I have seen from us, he sums up Phil Foden to TNT.
Simon Pajkowski, head writer for the Manchester Evening News, wrote that the evening had become awkward and surreal. The visitors from Germany are believed to have torn apart City and shocked the Etihad Stadium.
In the TV 2 studio, Erik Thorstveit was tough during the break. He was most critical of the defensive play, which he described as “awful” and “frighteningly bad”.
Even after converting the score 3-2 in the second half, Pep Guardiola says he wasn’t sure if they would win the game.
– We were lucky, the City manager says seriously in the post-match press conference.
He believes the positive thing is that the team won the group before the last match against Rod Stern.
– There were “easy” goals against. In football you have to win duels. He mentioned that Chelsea matchChelsea matchA Premier League match earlier in November was full of goals. Chelsea scored four goals against Manchester City. The match eventually ended 4-4.. But this also applies to moving forward on the field. We had chances and wasted them. But perhaps it was good not to win comfortably and we have to look in the mirror, says the City coach.
When VG asked how disappointed he was during the break and what he said to the players in the locker room, he answered as follows:
– It’s not about being disappointed or yelling at them. First of all, I didn’t expect them to play with five players in defence. So our pressing wasn’t particularly good. I had to change something. But the most important thing in the second half was that we scored early. He helped us.
On Haaland’s part, the match was characterized by wasted opportunities and huge advances.
RB Leipzig is the team he “likes” to play against. He scored five goals against the Germans when the two teams met in the round of 16 in the Champions League qualifiers last season.
But in the first half, Garbo, like the rest of the team, was rarely anything but accurate. Haaland missed at least two clear chances.
But in the second half, he took revenge, scoring alone with the goalkeeper his 40th goal in the Champions League in 35 matches. That’s faster to 40 hitters than anyone else has done before.
It was the visitors’ speedy striker Luis Opinda who scored not just one, but two goals before half-time.
City’s performance suggests their strong home run could be broken on Tuesday evening.
Haaland and co. They are unbeaten at home at the Etihad Stadium in the 2023 calendar year. They were on a 23-game winning streak before last weekend’s visit to Liverpool and a 1-1 draw.
But Haaland breathed life into the dream of transformation.
The Norwegian raced to the ball and ran straight towards the midfield again when he was one-on-one with the keeper in the 54th minute.
The signal was clear. While his name was echoing on the field, neither he nor the players had time to express their joy.
A quarter of an hour later, the ball entered the goal behind the visiting team’s goalkeeper again. This time it was Phil Foden who got the ball inside the 16 meter box.
With a silky smooth touch and a subsequent body trick – which he is almost capable of – the RB Leipzig defense was off the field and suddenly the ball was in the goal – again.
With four minutes to go – and a long siege of the pitch – Alvarez ensured the match finished 3-2 to Manchester City.
City are now unbeaten in 29 consecutive matches Local matches in the Champions LeagueLocal matches in the Champions LeagueOnly Barcelona with 38 games (2013-2020) and Bayern Munich with 29 games (1998-2002) can match this streak. .
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