Champions League: Manchester City reach historic quarters

Manchester City inched a step closer to achieving their ambitions when reaching the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the first time on Tuesday.

The English Premier League side drew 0-0 at home with Ukraine’s Dynamo Kiev to reach the last eight with a 3-1 aggregate win.

The progress represents a huge achievement for outgoing coach Manuel Pellegrini since City were a club adrift in Europe when he took charge in 2013.

In the two previous seasons, City — English champions in 2012 — had never managed to get out of their Champions League group.

But that all changed when Pellegrini replaced Roberto Mancini as coach and in both the Chilean’s first two seasons, he took City into the Last 16.

Both clashes came against Barcelona, which resulted in early exits for the men in blue, but City’s fortunes changed when they finally won a group for the first time, as they did last December when topping Group D.

 

This time, they were paired against less strong opposition in Dynamo Kiev, who may be leading the Ukrainian league with 16 wins out of 18 but who represent a very different challenge.

City made light of the first leg, winning 3-1 in the Ukrainian capital, but could only muster a tepid goalless draw on Wednesday night.

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Nonetheless, scenes of joy broke out at the final whistle — with huge smiles on the faces of the City players — as the club finally made history.

City owner Sheikh Mansour also now has some reward to look back on in Europe, where the billion dollars he has spent since taking charge in 2008 has failed to make much impact (albeit while delivering five domestic trophies, including two Premier League titles and one FA Cup).

Meanwhile, Pellegrini had led a team into the quarterfinals for the fourth time, following previous visits with Spanish clubs Villareal (2005/6, 2008/9) and Malaga (2012/13).

He will now hope to go one better than his 2006 run, when he took Villareal to the semifinals.

Even though City will be in Friday’s draw for the first time in their history, and buoyed by the potential return of Kevin de Bruyne after the knee injury he sustained in January ahead of next month’s quarterfinal, City’s win came at a cost.

Vincent Kompany limped off after just six minutes, with the captain facing another spell on the sidelines in an injury-ravaged season.

Fellow center back Nicolas Otomendi also limped off, so leaving Pellegrini with a defensive headache ahead of the Manchester derby on Sunday.

Dynamo failed to win in England for the 14th time, but did at least manage to avoid defeat for only the third time.

 

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