Pep Guardiola returned to the Etihad Stadium for the first time since Manchester City were found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations, a low-key presence in a flat cap sitting a row behind chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and chief executive Ferran Soriano. His appearance was a public show of support for his former bosses: the Catalan, who decorated this stadium with trophies over a decade, is ignoring the outside noise and backing them to clear their name on appeal after the guilty verdict passed down by an independent commission. That he chose a game certain to attract a global audience for his return was heavy with significance.
The staging around him was awash with defiance. The stand bearing Guardiola’s name was emblazoned with a ‘CTID’ — City ‘Til I Die — mosaic, and the build-up to kick-off brought a display of fireworks and pyrotechnics worthy of several rock concerts. Guardiola’s name resounded around the stadium as the game began, part of a wall of sound from the home support. The ‘us against the world’ strategy was working perfectly — until the football started.
Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain delivered a ruthless first-half reality check, their mastery cloaked within the brutal beauty of their football. Désiré Doué, Ousmane Dembélé and Vitinha were the scorers as City were ripped apart, and the 3-0 half-time scoreline arguably did the home side a kindness. A match that began in a wall of sound was reduced to stunned silence inside the first 15 minutes. City, so composed and ordered amid the toxicity of Anfield on Sunday, were shell-shocked on their own territory, with even born streetfighters such as Enzo Fernández reduced to chasing shadows.
To City’s great credit — and to Maresca’s, after he made three half-time changes — they responded superbly after the break, creating a host of chances. Erling Haaland gave them hope, and PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who had a very poor night against his former club, saw a save from Maghnes Akliouche drop behind him into the net. Joško Gvardiol had a header cleared off the line. City could not retrieve what had been lost before the interval, but they did at least allow their fans to ramp up a frenzied atmosphere and give the team a rousing send-off at the final whistle after a 4-2 defeat.
Guardiola looked just as engaged as he did when he prowled this touchline, his agonised expression mirroring that of his successor Enzo Maresca in the technical area. He clutched his face in anguish when Gvardiol’s header was cleared off the line; when Haaland scored a goal that threatened to offer City an unlikely lifeline, he remained seated but pumped his fists into the air. Had he been a neutral observer, he would have relished a game of glorious chaos. The post-match discussion with Maresca would certainly have had a busy agenda.
Maresca felt he saw enough to give City hope should they meet PSG again later in the Champions League. “I really like playing against PSG because they are brave,” he said. “We know the way they want to press. They go man-to-man and they are very dynamic on the ball. They are the best team in Europe. They play fantastic football. But I think we are there. The reason why we struggled was because we conceded two early goals so quickly. When you are on the pitch you might think this is difficult, but in the second half we created enough to maybe deserve something. We feel sorry for the first half but I think we’re quite happy now.”
Former Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha, watching for Match of the Day, described it as “great entertainment” but “not a normal game of football”. “I don’t feel like both teams were going at it at the same time,” he said. “In the first half, PSG were excellent and City looked really off the pace. As a consequence they were heavily punished and the game basically left them. But then in the second half they have made some changes, they have rallied, knowing they are playing in front of their own crowd and their performance had to be better. So, it was more aggressive and more on the front foot, and that’s why we saw those crazy scenes where it was shot after shot by City.”
Luis Enrique remains the scourge of the Premier League. The PSG coach added another win over City to a Champions League victims list that includes Liverpool, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, the latter in a semi-final and then last season’s final, and he is currently master of all he surveys in Europe as leader of this PSG team.
In these surroundings there was no question of any backlash against City’s Abu Dhabi-based owners, despite the serious financial charges the club were found guilty of, a verdict that has left them awaiting sanctions and the outcome of their appeal with the Premier League in a state of limbo. For Maresca and City it is back to domestic business at home to Ipswich Town on Saturday — and all the uncertainty that brings.