For Manchester City, the sense of history repeating itself must feel suffocating. They have been exhilarating in the Premier League but then the Champions League anthem plays, the insecurity floods back and suddenly they look vulnerable. It has become a recurring theme and in their fifth season of trying to find the right formula they still look conspicuously short of being a team who understand European football at the highest level.
It certainly must have been startling for Manuel Pellegrini to see the way his team crumpled during those moments when a winning position became a losing one and the same old nagging doubts returned to make it feel like City have plainly not learned a great deal from previous ordeals in this competition. Juventus were simply too streetwise and too experienced, playing with the tenacity and knowhow that took them to last season’s final, while breaking the resolve of a team who have just established a club record of winning 11 consecutive league games.
Juventus may not have won a single match in Serie A this season but the team who have reeled off four scudetti in a row produced a wonderfully robust response to the injustice of Giorgio Chiellini’s own goal, when a foul ought to have been awarded against Vincent Kompany. If City are looking for some guidance about how to cope with the Champions League they could start by looking at the balance and structure of Massimiliano Allegri’s team.
Juventus chased the ball down with great urgency but also knew how to slow the pace against a team who like it fast and frenetic. It was mix of stout defending, some exceptional goalkeeping from Gianluigi Buffon and, when it really mattered, ruthless finishing from Mario Mandzukic and Álvaro Morata.
City could reflect on several chances that would have changed the complexion of the match but Raheem Sterling, with two of them, had still to develop a clinical edge. City never look as threatening when Sergio Agüero is unfit – the Argentinian was restricted here to a late substitute role – and it was rare to see their attacking quartet play with so little cohesion. The link-up play we have come to expect was only sporadically there. Yaya Touré and David Silva struggled to exert their usual influence and Samir Nasri cannot expect to keep his place when he is so subdued. Wilfried Bony provided a couple of the game’s outstanding moments, deceiving Leonardo Bonucci with a nutmeg and setting up a later attack with a brilliantly executed dummy, but when he had a sight of goal from the first of those moments his finishing was wild. “I don’t think this result is just because of Raheem,” Pellegrini lamented, reflecting on the difference between the sides’ finishing and fooling no one by saying his team had controlled the match.
For Juventus, Juan Cuadrado showed more in one match than he managed during five listless months at Chelsea. Paul Pogba demonstrated why City thought strongly about trying to sign him in the summer and their two goalscorers worked indefatigably. Kompany’s calf injury compounded a bad night for City, conceding their first goals in over 10 and a half hours of play and leaving themselves with the now familiar game of catch-up. If nothing else, it is not a new experience for them.
City had opened the scoring 12 minutes into the second half, just at the point of the match when it seemed like Allegri’s team were taking control, and it was a goal laced with controversy. Chiellini was outraged, and justifiably given the way Kompany had been using the defender’s back to gain a few inches, pinning him to the ground. Chiellini could not get out of the way and Silva’s corner struck him flush in the face, bounced off his nose and flew past Buffon.
A couple of minutes later, Buffon produced a double save that had Allegri describing him as the best goalkeeper there has ever been. The first was to keep out Sterling but it was the speed to get off the ground and turn away Silva’s follow-up effort that was breathtaking. Buffon would later tip away a curling effort from Touré that was heading towards the top corner, but it was the double save that had the greatest impact bearing in mind what happened in the 70th minute.
Pogba, denied an 11th-minute goal because of a marginal offside decision, delivered the cross from the left and Mandzukic had peeled away from Eliaquim Mangala, jutting out one of his long legs to turn the ball past Joe Hart for the equaliser. It was a neatly worked goal and Morata’s finish was an even more accomplished piece of centre-forward play. By this stage, Kompany had left the pitch and Morata was sharper than the substitute, Nicolás Otamendi, after a long ball forward had struck Aleksandar Kolarov on the back of his shoulder. Morata was brilliantly decisive and curled an elegant left-foot shot into the net, starting outside the far post but bending in to complete the recovery.
“The last two seasons we started the same way, losing the first game, and qualified for the next stage,” Pellegrini said. “We are just starting. We never want to lose at home and we never want to lose important points but we have 15 more points to play for.”
