For Pep Guardiolait was a miserable stage, a terrible way to recall a century. His 100th Champions League game in charge Manchester City ranked among the worst. And, as poor as his players were, he recognized who was most responsible for that. Se.
City were beaten by managerial complacency and their own lackluster performance as well as a rather impressive performance. Bayer Leverkusen side. As the third-placed teams from the Premier League and Bundesliga met, Guardiola chose his second-row team. They came second. It was a gamble that backfired. The regulars were rested when City’s next opponents were relegation-threatened Leeds, with the decision to make 10 changes seeming unnecessarily strange. “Too many changes,” admitted Guardiola. “It was the first time in my life that I had done it and it was too much. I take full responsibility for it.”
Guardiola punished after making major changes (AP)
Now the fallout from a shock reverse could mean a place in the last 16 of the play-offs that City had sought to bypass. “I don’t predict what will happen in the future,” Guardiola said. He probably didn’t plan for this. After 23 Champions League group stage matches without defeat, seven years ago, Leverkusen established itself as the successor to Lyon, previous conquerors of the Etihad.
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These are now consecutive defeats for City, fresh after their defeat at Newcastle. It could be back-to-back Champions League defeats, given their next match is against Real Madrid. As a result, this phase looks less like a procession for them. For Leverkusen, who struck clinically through Alejandro Grimaldo and Patrick Schick, it was further proof of manager Kasper Hjulmand’s transformative impact after Erik ten Hag’s brief reign was ended with embarrassing speed. “It’s an unforgettable evening,” Hjulmand said. “Three points here at City is not something you can expect.”
Neither is the City team sheet. If the intention was to prove that this was not a one-man team, it gave precisely the wrong impression. “I always like to be too nice and involve everyone,” Guardiola said. A starting 11 that cost £350 million produced a flat display. “I think, however, that the players who started were exceptional players,” added Guardiola. But his one-liners were disappointing. None seized the opportunity. Guardiola, a three-time Bundesliga winner, appeared guilty of underestimating the recent German champions.
Only Nico Gonzalez retained his place, and even he wouldn’t be a first choice if Rodri was fit. There was neither Gianluigi Donnarumma nor Erling Haaland. Not at first, anyway. “We had weapons on the bench,” Guardiola said. He was forced to call on Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku and Nico O’Reilly at half-time, replacing the ineffective trio of Rico Lewis, Oscar Bobb and Rayan Ait-Nouri. After another 20 minutes, Haaland and Rayan Cherki came on. Omar Marmoush, prolific against German clubs Eintracht Frankfurt, had little impact against Leverkusen and gave way to Haaland.
Between the great man, a rare night off cut short by the state of emergency. “We can’t play Erling every time for 95 minutes,” Guardiola said. Given 25 minutes, Haaland’s streak of scoring in every Champions League game this season came to an end. Mark Flekken made a fine save when the Norwegian was released by Foden, just as the goalkeeper twice denied Cherki. The substitutes at least made the difference. The incumbents had left them with too much work.
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Flekken was excellent and yet, for much of the first half, a spectator. He made a good point-blank save against Nathan Ake. That aside, Guardiola’s reserves were too unremarkable in the first 43 minutes. Then Tijjani Reijnders lunged and Flekken parried, one Dutchman again denying another. Otherwise, this feeling of nothingness before the break had pushed Guardiola to turn to his bench. That, and the fact that Leverkusen were already in the lead.
Alex Grimaldo scored in the opener for Leverkusen (AP)
Patrick Schick scored the second goal in front of the Leverkusen fans (PA)
Supervised by Christian Kofane, Grimaldo slotted a shot past Champions League debutant James Trafford. It was the left-back’s eighth goal of the season for the Spaniard, a remarkable comeback from one of Xabi Alonso’s best signings. Most of the talismanic figures from the 2024 team that won Leverkusen’s first Bundesliga title are gone. Not Grimaldo. Captain of the club in the absence of the suspended Robert Andrich, he also contributed to the second goal. Schick beat Ake to respond to Ibrahim Maza’s cross with a deflected header. For him too, it was an eighth goal of the campaign.
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And while Leverkusen proved it was possible for a team playing a 3-4-3 to win in Manchester this week, an injured team also defended with great organization. It was remarkable how few alarms they had and how much control they exercised. Their Champions League campaign began with three games without a win, culminating in a 7-2 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.
Yet while City promised to be the next toughest opponent they faced, it was a spectacular scoreline for a very different reason. The city is not used to nights like this. Neither does Guardiola. But even if his team was wrong, so was he.
