Manchester City’s Champions League momentum stalled on Wednesday night as a heavily rotated side fell 2–0 to Bayer Leverkusen at the Etihad Stadium, handing Pep Guardiola an unhappy outcome on his 100th Champions League match in charge of the club.
Despite making 10 changes to his lineup, Guardiola’s side struggled to settle, and Leverkusen capitalised early. The visitors struck in the 23rd minute when Ibrahim Maza’s delivery found Christian Kofane, whose touch set up Alejandro Grimaldo to fire clinically past James Trafford.
City attempted to rally before the interval, but Mark Flekken denied Oscar Bobb and Tijjani Reijnders to preserve Leverkusen’s lead. The German side then tightened their grip shortly after the restart, with Maza again the creator, this time lofting a ball for Patrick Schick to glance a precise header into the far corner.
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Guardiola introduced Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku and Nico O’Reilly at half-time, followed later by Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki, but City lacked the sharpness needed to turn the game. Flekken thwarted Haaland with a superb stop on 69 minutes and pushed away Cherki’s late free-kick to ensure City finished the night scoreless.
Reflecting on the performance, Guardiola said:
“It was not the performance that we thought. I take full responsibility… We missed an incredible opportunity and now we need to fight in the next games.”
He added that the team fell short in key moments:
“We didn’t have that, you know, to believe, this is a moment to attack and this is the moment to defend.”
Club captain John Stones was equally candid:
“We weren’t good enough as a collective tonight… We created a lot of chances but we didn’t have that edge to us. The clinical edge, the aggressive edge.”
The defeat, City’s first in Europe this season, leaves them sitting sixth in the composite Champions League standings with 10 points from five games. Up next is a challenging trip to the Bernabéu to face Real Madrid on December 12 at 20:00.