Manchester City vs Monaco: 1-3
As the match ended in Stade Louis II stadium it was a complete heartbreak for Manchester city as Monaco sent them crashing out of the Champions League on away goals. Monaco started as the second best to win the match but then pulled a complete thrill to end the match on aggregate 6-6 against Manchester city.
Monaco earlier lost 5-3 in an extraordinary first leg of matches held at Manchester city and later defeating Manchester city at Stade Louis II. Manchester City surely missed their star Striker Radamei Falcao who had failed so dramatically in England with loan spells at Manchester United and Chelsea. Manchester City just needed a win or a draw to go into the Champions League quarter-finals were Barcelona, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid have already Qualified.
Coming to the Line –up of the match Manchester city followed a very rare strategy of 4-1-4-1 which didn’t look as their attacking mindset as S.Aguero was the lone striker. While on the other hand, Monaco was clear with their mindset of Defence with 4-4-2. As the match started Manchester City hardly looked threatened in the first half as they lack the attacking game plan and also they were not good in defence. There were two brilliant football scenes during the match were the Manchester city lost the match in the first half of the match when they were outplayed, outfought and were bullied by Monaco. Monaco was on sore from starting minutes of the match as they managed to break the City’s defence thrice in 2minutes later securing a goal. It was the 7’of the match when Kylian Mbappe French striker went through the City’s defence and sound threatening but was blocked by Goalle; later in 8’ brilliant assistant by Bernardo Silva (midfielder), Kylian Mbappe scored the opening goal of the match. Manchester City never looked in control of the match. It was the 28’of the match when a perfect cross from B.Mendy saw Fabinho scoring another goal. It was a superb cross and an excellent execution and Manchester city were unable to overcome in the first half. At the end of first half of the match, the scores favour Monaco 2-0.
From the start of the second half, it was quite evident with the strategy of Monaco players as they wanted to play defensive as they lead the match 2-0. City failed to muster any sort of threat to Opponents until 65’when a decent save from Subasic (goalkeeper) dropped to the right of Leroy Sane and Sane does no mistake to put one through. It was still not the end of the match when a free-kick was whipped into the dangerous area by Lemar but City players were too late to react and Bakayoko given the freedom to head past the Caballero. At the end of full-time, it was Monaco who advances to the Champions League quarter-finals.
MATCH STATS:
- Kylian Mbappe has now scored 11 goals in his past 11 matches.
- Bernardo Silva has provided an assist in each of his past three matches.
- Monaco enters the quarter-finals, with champions League holder Real Madrid, Runner-up Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus.
