Champions League quarterfinal: Manchester City 1-0 Paris Saint Germain
PSG were the favorites before the tie but fell short against a strong City side. Paris Saint-Germain is not yet the great club they claim to be in Europe. Manchester City handled them well and De Bruyne was the decision maker who made the difference on the pitch. He scored in Paris for the first leg and won it at Manchester City with a superb lifted strike putting away any hopes for PSG. Manchester City advances to the semifinals of the Champions League for the first time their history while PSG failed to reach the last four for the fourth straight year.
Coach City, Pellegrini comments on the historic win:
“It’s a very great achievement for the club – not only to reach the semi-final and be one of the best four teams in Europe but also to have done so with our style of play. A lot of people thought that we would try for a draw here but from the beginning, we thought and played as a big team and I am very happy to continue with our style.
“It’s very important to be in the semi-final because it was my job to go further in the competition. This year, the team has improved by winning the group then playing very good performances against Dynamo and a very strong Paris Saint-Germain. We can be the best team in Europe. It’s not easy because there are many strong teams in Europe but the target of this club is to win the Champions League.
I know that we receive a lot of criticism but we are improving every year so this is the most important thing. If you are in the semi-final, you have to play one of the big teams of Europe but if we play the way we played against PSG, then we can have a lot of trust against any team.”
Coach PSG, Blanc comments on a missed opportunity:
“We didn’t play our best football in either of the two matches. We were missing players, but that’s not an excuse. Tonight we tried to do what we had to do: win. But now we have to congratulate Manchester City, who played two excellent matches of football. We are very disappointed, because we could have done much better. They played better than us and we weren’t able to score when we were dominating and that makes it harder to win matches. The formation? We analysed the first leg and we decided to solidify our centre of defence to prevent their attackers getting the better of us. But got ourselves in trouble. Then there was the injury to Thiago Motta, that meant we had to change again. We had big ambitions, but we fell just short.”
President al-Khelaifi:
“We are very disappointed with the result. But that’s football and we have to accept it. It’s the fourth time we reach the quarter-finals and are eliminated. Now we have to take a step back and analyse what has happened.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic:
“In the first half we played with a new system and what happened, happened. If it had gone well, nobody would say anything, and now people will say we gave it away. The second half was better, when we reverted to our normal tactics, but we gave away two games.
