Manchester City fail to pull off miracle comeback against Barcelona in Champions League...

[ASFN Admin]

Manchester City 2-1 Barcelona (2-4 on aggregate) Manchester City will “stick together” and use the experience of their quarter-final loss to Barcelona to try and go further in the Women’s Champions League next term, City manager Gareth Taylor said. A deserved 2-1 home victory was not enough for Taylor’s side to overturn the heavy advantage the Catalan giants held from the first leg, as the Spanish league leaders progressed to face either holders Lyon or Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-finals. Needing to score at least three times against a side that have only conceded three league goals all season and kept 12 clean sheets in a row, the English club’s chances seemed very slim. They got the early goal that they desperately craved as Canada’s Janine Beckie bundled in from a corner. But, as City built up pressure, a second-half counter attack from the Spanish side saw Nigeria’s Asisat Oshoala slot in the decisive away goal to leave the hosts needing four more. They found one of those through United States midfielder Sam Mewis’ penalty, but after heavy pressing in the first half their intensity dropped in the closing stages on an unseasonably warm evening in Manchester. Before the game, Taylor had been adamant his side were “capable” of scoring the necessary goals to turn the tie around, and he was proved right in the sense that his side did create sufficient chances to give themselves hope, but they were not quite clinical enough with them. Ellen White fired straight at the keeper twice, while Beckie had two efforts superbly saved and Barcelona defended resolutely. “We had to go out and chase the game, be aggressive and take the game to them,” Taylor said. “I was proud of the girls, they left everything out there. We just came up a little bit short. Once they scored the away goal it was obviously an uphill battle for us. “You need that luck to go with you as well. These experiences will stand us in good stead for next year, I look forward to meeting them [Barcelona] again.” Match details Manchester City (4-3-3): Roebuck; Bronze (Weir, 73), Dahlkemper, Greenwood, Morgan; Lavelle, Walsh, Mewis (Coombs, 80); Beckie, White (Stanway, 73), Kelly (Park, 86) Subs not used: Benameur (g), Mannion, Davies Yellow cards: Kelly Barcelona (4-3-3): Panos; Torrezno, Pereira (Fernandez, 89), Maria Leon (Losada, 79), Ouhabi; Bonmati, Guijarro, Alexia; Graham Hansen (Martens, 61), Oshoala (Crnogorcevic, 79), Mariona (Vilamala, 89) Subs not used: Coll (g), Laia Codina, Melanie Yellow cards: Pereira Referee: Monika Mularczyk (Poland)

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