Manchester City Women have been knocked out of the Champions League after they lost 1-0 to Real Madrid as Caroline Weir scored against her old club.
It was written in the stars ahead of kick-off for the former City player to break Blues’ hearts, and it took just 15 minutes for Weir to find the scoresheet. It was a lovely finish from the Scot as she perfectly controlled a cross to feet, calmly spun her marker on the penalty spot before firing the ball into the top corner past the helpless Ellie Roebuck in goal.
It was the type of finish that reminded City fans why she was nominated for Fifa’s Puskas award for Goal of the Year two seasons running during her time at the club.
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Things nearly turned from bad to worse for City after 35 minutes when Kathellen Sousa found herself unmarked inside the six-yard-box. Thankfully for the Blues, she somehow managed to head the ball off the crossbar in front of an open goal from three-yards out as the score remained 1-0.
City went into the break a goal down and the players needed to re-group after a first half that offered next to nothing for Gareth Taylor’s side. As the players emerged back into the 32-degree heat for the second-half, it was unfortunately more of the same as Madrid began to find their groove in a game where chances for City were few and far between.
City did eventually get their chance in the 80th minute after Lauren Hemp found herself in space on the left as she drilled the ball low across the box to pick out Deyna Castellanos. The player was desperately unlucky to see her first-time effort hit the inside of the post and eventually be cleared away to safety.
Roebuck was then called into action at the other end of the pitch as she produced a simply sensational save in the 88th minute to deny Esther González what looked to be a certain goal. The Madrid striker was played through one-on-one and it was an incredible reflex save from City's goalkeeper to keep the deficit to just a single goal.
In the dying embers of the match, Hemp saw a fizzing drive flash across the face of the goal as she narrowly missed out on scoring a 95th-minute equaliser as City had one final attempt to salvage something from the match.
As the full-time whistle blew, Taylor’s side simply never had the chances needed to beat a Madrid team that were in inspired form. City could not avoid the same fate that the club suffered in last year’s competition as Madrid knocked the Blues out of Europe once again - this is now the fifth season in-a-row that the club have been knocked out of the Champions League by Spanish opposition.
A disappointing result of course, yet fans will no doubt curse their luck as to how they met Madrid so early on in the competition - if they were facing almost any other team at this stage involved in the 'league path', the Blues would have been strong favourites to progress.
Despite the defeat, the attention will now turn to the Women’s Super League where City will look to regroup as they play Arsenal in their first game of the season on Sunday 11 September.
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