Man City vs atlético Madrid

Foden supplied the match-winning assist 80 seconds after coming off the bench - City's Plan B is a luxury that every other club would envy as a Plan A.

There is no worse side in Europe to fall behind against, whether that’s over one leg or two. If City were complicit in that struggle, it was through failing to move the ball quicker through midfield and repeatedly wasting crosses by hitting the first or second man at barely above head height. - Felix – 6 - Mahrez – 6 It also occasionally gets vaguely unpleasant. For most of Tuesday evening, Pep Guardiola pointed and screamed like a frazzled conductor in charge of four different orchestras as Manchester City struggled to break down a comedically defensive Atletico Madrid, albeit one that did flicker on the counter attack after the break.

Manchester City 1-0 Atletico Madrid: Kevin De Bruyne scored the game's only goal on 70 minutes at the Etihad after Foden's magical assist.

Atletico are going to have to do much more than aggravate City players in the second leg. For that superb 70th-minute moment of inspiration Foden just used his feet to devastating effect, dribbling at a speed the Atletico defenders just couldn’t cope with it. City didn’t even have a shot on target in the first half. The 2016 Griezmann would have scored. The 2016 Griezmann did score. They just didn’t have the pace. Antoine Griezmann certainly didn’t have the pace he used to. For a coach so often accused of doing something different for the sake of it, Guardiola here started with a tactic he had used before. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. In the 2015-16 semi-final, Guardiola instructed his Bayern Munich team to keep crossing the ball at Atletico. That may seem aimless given how good Simeone’s defenders are in the air, but the logic is they are so intensely focused on specific jobs that second balls are a potential source of weakness. For the second of those breaks, in a passage of play that initially seemed a replica of the crucial goal in 2016, the French star was suddenly away. no one there.