An eventful night at the San Siro
An eventful night at the San Siro
Manchester City have not played many Italian teams in the Champions League but most of their trips there have been memorable.
There was the visit to Juventus in the Europa League in 2010, where a superstitious Roberto Mancini refused to get on the plane when he saw ice on it. Or the must-win Champions League group game at Roma in 2014, where Manuel Pellegrini's team produced a nervy 2-0 victory to qualify for the last-16 having not won any of their first four matches.
Naples will go down as the spectacular location where Sergio Aguero became the all-time highest scorer for the Blues, netting in a brilliant 4-2 win for Pep Guardiola's side in 2017. And then there was the San Siro two years later, where everything went horribly wrong.
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It started well enough for Guardiola's men against Atalanta as Raheem Sterling's early goal put them on course for a fourth win in as many Champions League games. Even a horribly skewed penalty from Gabriel Jesus in the first half that went wide of the goal didn't set alarm bells ringing.
However, the sight of Claudio Bravo warming up at half-time indicated that something was wrong with Ederson, and the last thing a City team that hadn't been coping well with setbacks in the absence of a settled backline needed was their first choice keeper coming off. Soon enough, within four minutes of thee restart a shaky Bravo had been beaten to see the game level.
Worse was to follow as the home team pushed for a winner, with a rash tackle from the No.2 seeing him red-carded with ten minutes of the game to go and only outfield players on the bench. Up stepped Kyle Walker to go between the sticks and proudly see off the remaining danger to give his team a point.
"Not many people can say they've played in net at the San Siro," Walker said after the game. “I’m always giving the goalkeepers stick when I’m out there, saying you should be catching those ones, so it was a toss-up between me and John [Stones] who was on the bench to who was going to come on.
“It was ‘who is the dumbest between Kyle and John? We’re going to pick Kyle today!'
“Luckily enough I did okay, I wasn’t too happy with my save, I should have caught it but I kept the ball out of the net and I’ve been in teams where players have fumbled them into the back of the net. It’s a lonely place back there!”
Walker lapped up the praise of his teammates and manager, although the injury to Ederson was severe enough for him to miss the crucial trip to Anfield days later. Claudio Bravo returned in goal and Liverpool cruised to a 3-1 victory that all but knocked City out of the title race for that season.
City will settle for a quiet trip to Juventus this week if it means they come back with three points and no more problems.