How will Mancini react to this elimination?
Wednesday 7th December 2011
Manchester City 2 – Silva 37, Touré 52
Bayern Munich 0
The Etihad Stadium
Manchester City completed the job against a weak Bayern side but weren’t able to get through to the knockout stages of the Champions League at the first time of asking. But how significant will this be?
By Connor Whitmore (see poll at bottom)
City’s biggest Champions League night in history had come. But it isn’t yet 19th May 2012, and they weren’t playing in the Allianz Arena, where the final will take place. Ironically, it was Bayern Munich who made the trip northwest in this, the last of the group stage matches for this year’s competition.
In arguably their second most pivotal moment of the season so far – including the 1-6 humiliation of Manchester United at Old Trafford – the blue half of Manchester failed to replicate the atmospherical overwhelming they’d experienced just two weeks previous in Naples. Right up to 7:45 in this final group game there was a tentative optimism within the stadium that hung as tantalisingly as the threadbare patience being held by the City faithful for their Milan-bound forward Carlos Tévez.
Ultimately it was this collective mundanity and lack of effort that marked their European campaign until this contest. What had made Roberto Mancini’s team look at most reasonable was the fact that they had been able to ignore relentless pressure over five games, masking it with pieces of chance – with the extreme exception of their surrender to Bayern and demolition of Villareal. City epitomised the unease, where prematurity had been more evident than determination.
Their muted home following reinforced the ill-expectant mood: the only presence they had amongst the traveling Bayern fans was in the booing of Jerome Boateng – who had departed from Eastlands in the summer – and in the distant echoes of “City!” chants, which should be the thunderous backdrop to the everyday excellence of the likes of Dávid Silva.
It’s not as if this battle was bereft of the Spaniard’s artistry – his penetrating half-volley ruptured the right-hand corner of Hans-Jörg Butt’s goal as the 37-minute mark had turned. Yaya Touré’s second for City in the 52nd minute was another exquisite passage of play. But both represented mere slivers of City’s season when the 77th minute came around in the Villareal-Napoli game, where Marek Hamsik’s tap-in had doubled Napoli’s lead and extinguished the importance of even these stylish goals.
Watching the final minutes of Manchester City’s campaign, I wondered why it hadn’t quite clicked for them in this competition. Yes, their fate dumped them in a harsh group of clubs from Europe’s finest leagues, but essentially they were up against defences that not many would see as trouble. They could also rest in the knowledge that their current goal difference in the Premier League stands at +35 (bar the form Bayern were in when the away fixture came up).
It wasn’t that their formation was weak: their 4-2-3-1, which thrives in English competition, is the same as Bayern’s, who won the group. Bayern, however, supplemented this rigid appearance with a directness and fizz that gave them an availability to score at will. By comparison, Napoli’s case almost disregarded formation – it was the closest to Total Football that we’d got in years. What City failed to do was settle into a group which consisted of sides that made up for their slight hindrances defensively with potency in attack. Even Villareal gave them a scare at The Etihad, though their involvement in the group proved miniscule – a team with zero points next to ones that boasted the likes of Franck Ribéry and Edinson Cavani.
In the final analysis, Man City’s exit is a demeaning outcome, one that was completely of their own doing. Immaturity vitiated among the flair that was unable to be transferred from the newfound flamboyancy of the Premier League.
However, City will now be able to focus on what, for them, should be the most important prize of all: the English crown of all crowns, the Premiership title. This would not only flick the city’s mayday alarm switch from red to blue, but would also send out a signal to the rest of Europe that would squash any memories of how failed their first top-level European experience has been.
Even though Manchester City won’t be returning to the Allianz Arena come May 19th of next year, it’ll be brief romances such as these which will leave them bewildered at first, but thankful for the testing experience, ready for when the world’s footballing Gods call on them again in years to come. As they surely will.
