Champions League: Manchester City into semi-finals for the first time in their history

It was a brilliant night for English football because PSG's defeat by Manchester City made sure England will retain  four champions league spots for a few more years.

Asides Zlatan Ibrahimovic free-kick early on – in the first half, there was not much attacking threat from the visitors at the Etihad Stadium.
Eventhough I am  not a City fan, I could not just imagine the sort of shock in the heart of the fans after Kun Aguero's penalty miss. Pundits will tell you as good as any penalty is, if it doesn’t enter the net, then is no where near the good stuff. He puts it just too wide, I wonder what he would be thinking if his team hadn’t won the game, that he has missed the most important penalty of his career?

Or sort of feeling that he had let his team mates down. It was important to note that  David Silva and Kevin de Bruyne were the only two players who could provide and create the much awaited goals for City but credit to Paris Saint-Germain who  played three defenders at the back with two wing backs for containing their movement and limiting the so called attacking width.

As a team who must score to progress to the next stage of the competition, you expected that the bite that the Paris St Germain attack was short of would return but somehow for them, it still looked like they were only using the advantage of the extra man only in the midfield but had no idea how they would put the ball in the net.

It must be said that there were two disallowed goals but they were rightly called off for offsides. The only player that came close to scoring was Edinson Cavani who couldn’t beat Joe Hart on a one on one scoring situation. Whatever his game plan was for the game, I think not many people will argue with me that Laurent Blanc’s team didn’t produce anything, they were too reliant on Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani but both were just getting deep with the ball.

Manchester City are now into semi-finals for the first time in their history. Great! This achievement has been made possible tonight by Kevin de Bruyne. Isn’t a sweet saying, Aguero suffered a bit of confidence after his penalty miss but you would still fancy Manchester City going through because of the two away goals they got in France.

The type of composure shown by Kevin de Bruyne before wrapping his right foot to scoring the important goal was what was missing in Silva and Aguero. It was fantastic, he never panicked and made the most of it. Not only that, Joe Hart was huge and key to this success. It must be said that Paris St-Germain didn’t get to trouble City’s defence line but few times they have got through, Hart was very much there.

What a presence he was for Manchester City last night. And again, coming into this game, many people thought the two City’s centrebacks would struggle but they were just able to hold their own and managed to be solid somehow. Kompany should be happy that for the second time in nine home champions league games, Manchester City are able to keep a clean sheet without his contribution.

At this stage of the champions league, you don’t get to meet an easy opponent, we already know Real Madrid are joining City in the last four but who else? All that will be decided by today when the other games are played but it’s possible Manuel Pellegrini face his replacement Pep Guardiola in the next round if Bayern Munich make the last four.

Written by Akorede on Talknaija Football Blog