While playing FC Copenhagen in the first leg of their last-16 match, Manchester City resumed their defense of the Champions League championship with a victory that was quite easy to achieve.
After Kevin de Bruyne gave Pep Guardiola’s team an early lead, it appeared as though they would go on to capture a significant victory, as the home team came close to putting them in a position where they might win.
Nevertheless, Ederson made a poor clearance, which resulted in the ball being given to Copenhagen. Magnus Mattsson took full advantage of the situation by scoring an outstanding goal.
Just before the break, Bernardo Silva scored another goal for Manchester City by deftly flicking the ball that De Bruyne had deflected through to him. This set Manchester City back in the lead.
Despite the fact that City were not exactly at their attacking best, they were able to ensure that they departed with a two-goal cushion courtesy to Phil Foden’s late score. De Bruyne and Erling Haaland had more opportunities to add to the lead after the break.
This coming Wednesday, March 6th, Manchester City will play host to Copenhagen for the second leg of the match.
Guardiola had told his team that they would not make things easy for them before the game, despite the fact that this was Copenhagen’s first game in two months after the sport in Denmark was put on hold for the winter break.
The Danish team had previously defeated Manchester United by a score of 4-3 at the Parken Stadium during the group stage of the Champions League in November. Additionally, they had held Manchester City to a scoreless draw at the same venue in 2022.
Although Guardiola’s team got out to a flying start, they were unable to maintain that momentum throughout the game. However, they did have a lot of opportunities to win by a larger margin. However, former Liverpool custodian Kamil Grabara was instrumental in preventing the away team from scoring more than two goals.
Grabara made excellent saves to prevent Ruben Dias from scoring early on and Jeremy Doku from scoring in the second half.
However, in the final minutes of the match, the away team upped their game once more to ensure that they would have a healthy advantage going into the second leg. They were able to secure this advantage when Foden scored a goal off of a cutback by De Bruyne.
As a result of an injury, Jack Grealish had to leave Manchester City earlier than expected, which negatively impacted the team’s early momentum.
After engaging in a challenge for the ball with Diogo Goncalves, the England forward, who was making his first start in six games, walked off the field with what appeared to be a muscular injury shortly after the challenge.
Grealish, who had been sidelined for three games in September due to a hamstring injury, was then pulled off in the 21st minute, and City will be hoping that the problem is not as severe as it appeared to be after the initial assessment.
As far as Guardiola is concerned, it appears that Jack Grealish has sustained a muscular injury.