City 3 - 1 Barcelona - Post match thread :-)

[Sir peace frog]

what a great but strange game.

both teams looked at their most dangerous when the other team had the ball,pep changed our style in the second half and went longer earlier and it worked a treat,no short passes out of the back longer and quicker ,sort of giving the ball to barca who then couldn't handle our press giving us loads of opportunities to counter.
he really is a fucking amazing coach and tactician,and this is just the start.

crowd sounded brilliant on telly, all the team played brilliantly and pep got it spot on.

big shout out to Raheem last night, that ball into gund was world class, should of got a penalty what the fuck the ref saw I don't know, for those who didn't watch on the telly the commentator said "maybe it was too early to give a penalty and maybe the ref didn't want to upset the balance of the game WTF.

STILL THINK WE CAN BE BETTER WHEN BREAKING,BARCA SHOWED US WITH THEIR GOAL WHAT (oops) what a counter attack will look like when pep has been here a few more months.

chuffed to bits with last night, get our feet back on the ground and go again against boro.

ps how many fouls did busquets commit,as for the left back before raheem got booked for "diving" their lb should of been booked twice, ref was fucking dreadful.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Barca's press is a bit different than say how tottenham pressed us. It is mostly Busquests, Rakitic that push up high to press. We used more long balls yesterday as there was a lot of space vacated by these two pressing up and hence we won a lot of 2nd balls and started our attack from there. we still played from the back , i remember one instance where we had a corner and the ball ended back to willy to start the attack again. Besides Pep always uses long ball aganist teams that press well, Bayern beat Dortmund 5-1 last year and Boateng used long balls to brilliantly slice open dortmund defence.

Spot on.

I remember Pep was quite proud of his long ball goal v Dortmund.

 

[kaz7]

Couldn't get to sleep i was so pumped up,so proud of the boys and those of you who went were brilliant as well
Disappointed to read so many rag references in this thread,they are not even on our radar anymore

 

[adeinchessy]

We've produced some good performances in the Champions League, but they've been isolated. When we've come up against the best teams, even though we've won the odd match (e.g.Bayern x2) I've never had the feeling that we thought we were, ultimately, good enough. Until now.

First of all, we could have lost. Then again we could have got a result against them a fortnight ago. What struck me was how delicately these games are balanced. Take away Fernandinho's unlucky slip & Bravo's disastrous pass in the first game, add in a better header from Stones & the game was in the balance. Consider Barca's chance when they were one up & their shot against the bar yesterday & the result could have been different.

I read we were "humbled" against Barca in the last game & I've already heard they were "humbled" against us yesterday. Bollocks!

The point is, for the first time, we look as though we actually believe we can compete with a team like Barcelona. We were a world away from the team that was so frightened against Real Madrid last year. Yes, they were without important players, Iniesta & Piquet in particular, but look at the chances we had apart from the goals we scored. I thought our entire midfield - Fernandinho, Silva, Gondogan, KDB & Sterling - were magnificent yesterday & Aguero was the perfect striker. If only Silva & Sterling could add goals to their games, what a team going forward we'd have. I also thought Fernando & Navas did really well when they came on.

Defensively, we have improvements to make, but our defense did better than theirs. This is Barcelona we've just beaten - & beaten well. On the day, our team was better than theirs - Messi, Suarez, Neymar et al - and I wouldn't swap :-D

 

[Terra Passenger]

We played OK.







:-)

 

[EddieR]

Redcafe site is well worth a visit. There's a lot of angst on there. http://www.redcafe.net/threads/hats-off-to-city-post-barca-win.423283/

My favourite post: 'It's clear to see City are streets ahead of us as a club, a business, as fans and as human beings.'
Is that a blue impostor? No? Someone has seen the light.

 

[Pleatfooted]

Its wonderful to see you two forming such a good friendship,and in such a short period of time......who knows,it might even lead to romance?

Haha you never know mate there was a lot of hugging of strangers last night, brilliant night :)

 

[Bayblue]

With pretty much no worthwhile input from Barca fans, which shows we coiuld have an 'end' full of City fans & create an atmosphere without having to wave at fat geordies. Make it so.

So true. The single one thing the club could do to improve the atmosphere

 

[Bayblue]

Love the fact that many times last night we did not get lured into pressing their back line with too many men. When it was obvious the press wasn't on we sat back nice and compact and said "fine, you can fuck about back there all you want, you can't hurt us from there, we'll just fill the spaces you want to get into." We are finally getting smarter, obviously down to Pep.

Well said. Shame you weren't sat near me last night. Would have been a refreshing change from all those screaming at the players (and I quote) to "get up there you lazy bastard"

 

[blue by birth]

Last night was a wake up to the big European teams that we aren't in awe of them anymore.
We look like we truly belong on the same pitch as Barca etc and it showed in the performance.
Throat still sore from last night and I thought the fans got right behind the team and believed we could beat them.
Sterling was outstanding as were all the players but got to say Kolarov, Stones and Zabba were fantastic and Ota was close behind them.
My motm was Gundogan and not just because he scored twice but because he showed why Pep was so adamant that we needed him.
We went toe to toe with them and deservedly beat them.
Oh what a night.