It had been an incredible start to Pep Guardiola’s tenure at City...
To say expectations/hopes had been exceeded was an understatement as City travelled to Glasgow with a 100% record in all competitions – 10 games played, 10 games won with 33 goals scored and just six conceded.
Already top of the Premier League, the Champions League campaign had begun with a resounding 4-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach and victory at Celtic Park in the second group game would equal the best start by a new manager in top flight English football. Ever.
Things couldn’t have gone any better, yet Guardiola was keen to temper the excitement that was building among the fanbase and in the media.
“Sooner or later, we will lose a game, it is going to happen,” he would tell enthusiastic journalists at various press conferences.
In pre-season, he’d even warned that he thought it was possible the players he had inherited might initially struggle with his tactical plans and thinking with a completely fresh set of ideas and work ethics to absorb.
Guardiola’s arrival as manager came on the back of a largely disappointing final campaign under Manuel Pellegrini, though the Chilean had guided City to a first Champions League semi-final where Real Madrid would triumph 1-0 over two legs.
As a manager, Guardiola was a two-time Champions League winner with Barcelona, and it was inevitable that the possibility of guiding City to success in the competition would be a question that would crop up regularly.
Ironically, Guardiola’s former club Barcelona had been drawn in City’s group along with Monchengladbach and Celtic, and the Catalans had beaten the Glasgow side 7-0 at the Camp Nou in their opening game.
Kevin De Bruyne, Vincent Kompany and Fabian Delph had all been ruled out of the clash, meaning a few positional changes for the starting XI, one being Aleks Kolarov moving into central defence alongside Nicolas Otamendi.
And there was the added subplot of four former City players now representing the green and white hooped shirts, with Kolo Toure, Nir Bitton, Scott Sinclair and – intriguingly – the on loan Patrick Roberts eligible to play against his parent club.
The atmosphere inside Celtic Park, packed with almost 58,000 fans, was raucous – as it always has been for decades when Scottish sides take on teams south of the border.
The Celtic fans and players were pumped up and raring to go so when the referee’s whistle started the game, the battle of Britain was well and truly underway.
And it wasn't long before Celtic Park was going wild.
Inside three minutes, City were caught out by a well-drilled set-piece routine that saw Sinclair find James Forrest on the right of the box, his first time cross was met by the diving head of Erik Sviatchenko which in turn stuck Moussa Dembele on its way past Claudio Bravo.
City appealed for offside, handball… anything, but the defending had been poor and Brendan Rodgers’ side had the momentum.
The Blues – playing in our bright orange second kit - needed a quick response, and on 11 minutes, it came, if a little fortuitously, when Kolarov’s long range shot fell kindly to Fernandinho who scrambled the ball past Craig Gordon to make it 1-1, sending 3,000 travelling City fans wild.
That parity lasted less than 10 minutes, as a rapid counter-attack by the hosts saw the ball work its way out to the overlapping Kieran Tierney whose low cross was cruelly deflected past Bravo by the backtracking Raheem Sterling for a hugely unlucky own goal.
But the breathless pace of the game wouldn’t let up and eight minutes later, City were level again and this time, Sterling was celebrating a goal at the right end as he collected David Silva’s threaded pass before expertly losing his marker and sliding the ball under Gordon in one fluid movement to make it 2-2 – a scoreline that would remain unchanged until the half-time break, allowing the watching public to catch their collective breath.
City had taken 10 games to concede six goals prior to this game, but Celtic had achieved half that figure in just 47 minutes as the Hoops took the lead for the third time just after the restart.
Tierney again was the architect as he sent in a cross from the left and Kolarov’s difficult evening took a turn for the worse as his hashed attempt at a clearance went to Dembele who teed himself up before hooking the ball over his shoulder and past a flat-footed Bravo to make it 3-2.
Cue pandemonium.
In what was fast becoming a Champions League classic, City again refused to panic, kept calm and came back to level for the third time.
Again Silva threaded a pass to Fernandinho and his short pass to Sergio Aguero saw the Argentine’s low shot parried by Gordon, but only into the path of Nolito who slotted home from close range to make it 3-3.
Not even an hour had been played and it looked as though the scoring would continue.
"It was maybe a good lesson for us, how important it is to start well. It is not easy to recover one goal, imagine two, imagine three..."
Fernandinho and Ilkay Gundogan went close to giving City the lead for the first time in the time that remained – and there had been plenty of it – but the game ended with no more goals being scored by either side and honours even.
Afterwards, Pablo Zabaleta said: “We always play to win and of course we should have won. It would have been a great step to qualify for the next round but at this level no games are easy. For us it was not the result that we were looking for but when you can’t win it is important not to lose.
“We were saying before the game that this is a difficult place to come and get a result. They are a club with a big history and a different team when they play at home compared to when they play away. The atmosphere was incredible and it was a great game to watch for the fans.”
Fernandinho recalled: “Going to Celtic Park and playing in that sort of atmosphere wasn’t easy. We wanted to win every Champions League we played, but we showed a lot of character that night, coming from behind three times.
“When you play in the Champions League away from home with the home fans pushing them the way they were, it’s difficult. After the result they had against Barcelona, they wanted to put on a performance against us and the crowd gave them that extra push.”
Pep Guardiola was equally pragmatic.
The unbeaten run under his leadership had extended to 11 games, even though the best-ever start record hadn’t been beaten, he had seen his team show guts and determination in difficult circumstances.
“It’s football, it’s Europe,” said Pep. “The opponents are here, they’re good.
In the last 24 games at home for Celtic they have just last three times. Teams like Milan, Juventus, Barcelona, United have lost here so I know how difficult it is.
That’s why the reaction of my players was amazing.
“It was difficult for us to start in the first half. That’s why I’m happy with the reaction from the players. It’s not easy to score three goals away. In the second half, the last 20 minutes we made absolutely everything. I don’t know how many chances they had after the three goals.
“It’s a pity because winning here would have been a good step forward but we knew form the beginning that this group is tough. We’re Manchester City and we’re going to fight until the last game to qualify.”
The Blues did qualify for the Round of 16, and the opponents for that game would see a match against Monaco that would even usurp the thrills and spills of Celtic Park – as we’ll relive in a future Match of the Season…
David Clayton
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