Despite a miserable defeat at home, Dynamo Kyiv did not completely give up hope of advancing to the quarter-finals.

They arrived in Manchester three days early, rented Manchester United's training base, and asked for some information about Manchester City from Manchester United, and even asked Manchester United for some experience in dealing with Manchester City.

Obviously, Dynamo Kyiv has ideas for this game.

It's just that Manchester City's preparation is also very sufficient, and Guardiola rotated in advance, so that most of the main players have been well rested, and they are specially prepared for this game.

For this game, Manchester City will be aiming for a win.

And they don't just have to win, they have to win beautifully, and get the team up in form ahead of the next stage of the Champions League knockout rounds.

In this way, no matter who is drawn in the quarter-finals, Manchester City will not be afraid.

However, City's luck seems to be a little less good.

Just over five minutes into the opening period, Kompany was injured in a scramble.

Pep Guardiola had to passively use a substitution to replace him with Toni Rudiger.

This is not the first time Kompany has been injured, having suffered one in the Carabao Cup final last time.

Fortunately, there was no major problem that time, and I recovered after a week of rest.

But this time, he was seriously injured, and I am afraid that he will not be able to recover in a short time.

Just five minutes into the game, the team crushed the captain, which was undoubtedly a huge blow for Manchester City.

Fortunately, Rudiger has grown rapidly this season, making a number of appearances in cup competitions and coming off the bench in the league on a number of occasions, so his form has not been a problem.

Rudiger found his form quickly after coming on and joined forces with Virgil van Dijk to freeze the opposition's strikers and put Dynamo Kyiv's plans to take advantage of the chaos to fail.

But City's bad luck isn't over yet!

In the 23rd minute, City suffered another heavy blow when another starting centre-back, Virgil van Dijk, suffered a knee injury and fell to the ground while battling with Boyarski.

On the sidelines, Pep Guardiola stood up from the dugout when Van Dijk fell to the ground.

No way?

Injured two main central defenders at once, is it so bad luck?

Manchester City's team doctor hurriedly came on the pitch with a medical kit, and after checking and communicating with Van Dijk, he made a substitution gesture.

Although Guardiola had some preparation in his heart the moment Van Dijk fell to the ground.

But when he saw the team doctor's substitution gesture, he couldn't help but curse secretly and kicked a bottle of mineral water on the sidelines away.

Damn, Van Dijk is also injured, how can this be played?

He glanced back at City's bench, which currently had two defenders.

One is the veteran Demichelis, who is getting older and has seen a significant reduction in appearances this season.

The other is young defender Kimmich, who Manchester City poached from Stuttgart.

Kimmich is only 21 years old and plays at full-back, and his height of 1.77m is not enough to support him at centre-back.

So Pep Guardiola thought about it for a while and finally let Demichelis play.

The opponent lost two big players in succession, and both were very key central defenders.

This made the Kyiv Dynamo side immediately have a lot of ideas!

They are naturally well aware of the strength of Manchester City's two main central defenders, Kompany is a top central defender who has been famous in European football for a long time, and he is also the double captain of Manchester City and the Belgian national team, so there is no doubt about his personal strength.

Although Van Dijk is only a young player, the strength and potential he shows in the position of central defender make no one dare to take lightly.

Some even predict that as long as Van Dijk continues his excellent performances at Manchester City, then he will have a chance to compete for the world's No. 1 centre-back!

The absence of such two defensive backbones will inevitably be a huge blow to Manchester City's backline.

Dynamo Kyiv needs goals to come back from the crowd and now the opposition has suffered a big change at the back, isn't this a God-given opportunity?

The Kieves, who felt that they had been blessed by God, were full of confidence as if this were their home stadium and launched a fierce attack on Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.

Manchester City's morale was indeed affected by the two injuries and the first half was not very good.

But the opponent's arrogant approach completely angered them.

This is the Etihad, the home of Europe's famous devils.

This should be a nightmare for all teams, not a place for you guys to show off their might!

As a result, the Manchester City players, who were aroused to fight, quickly recovered their form and began to launch a fierce attack on Dynamo Kyiv.

Seeing this, Guardiola immediately adjusted his tactics, allowing the players to speed up the pace of the game and play against the opponent.

Since the back line is not as stable as before, let's use the attack to solve the problem!

As long as we always score more goals than our opponents, it doesn't matter how many goals we concede!

The sudden acceleration of the pace made both sides begin to make mistakes, and steals, counterattacks, and counter-robberies have become the main theme on the court.

In such a rhythm attack, both teams got a lot of shots on goal.

In the 36th minute of the first half, De Bruyne suddenly shot from a distance in front of the big penalty area, but the ball was slightly wide of the goal due to a slip under his feet.

Two minutes later, Lin Quan's low shot into the box was blocked by the opposing goalkeeper with his legs.

Dynamo Kyiv also got a lot of chances, in the 33rd minute of the first half, Dynamo Kyiv made a low cross into the penalty area from the right, Yarmolenko did it back, and Buyarski's follow-up shot in the middle was blocked by Navas.

Although the score on the field was still 0:0, such a tense and exciting and passionate attack still made the fans who came to the scene and sat in front of the TV to watch the game addicted.

In the era of utilitarian football, ordinary teams usually choose to shrink their defense when they encounter strong teams, making the game very embarrassing.

There are really fewer and fewer games like this to open up the fight against the attack, especially when there is a huge gap between the opponent's strength and Manchester City, but they still have the courage to take the initiative to attack at Manchester City's home stadium.

Regardless of whether Dynamo Kyiv can win in the end, this courage to show the sword alone is commendable!

In fact, this is the fans who think wrongly, in their eyes, Dynamo Kyiv is weaker than Manchester City, so they consider it a weak team.

But Dynamo Kyiv is also a well-known giant in the Ukrainian Super League, and people don't think they are fish belly.

Both teams played ferociously but were unlucky and neither side could find the back of the net in the first half.

In the second half, both teams had no intention of stopping.

Manchester City can't put a bus at home to face a weak team, and the score behind the score of Dynamo Kyiv only has Huashan left, since it can't sit still, then it can only grit its teeth and continue to attack.

So, the two sides continued to attack.

In the 58th minute, Manchester City won a well-placed free kick at the edge of the penalty area, Lin Quan discussed with Kroos and De Bruyne, Kroos stepped aside, Lin Quan and De Bruyne both stood in front of the football.

The opposing players all sounded the alarm in their hearts, and both of them took great free-kicks.

De Bruyne's elevator ball is magical, and Lin Quan's free-kick is strange and changeable.

Whoever takes the penalty is a huge test for the goalkeeper.

The referee blew the whistle and the two men started running at the same time, but De Bruyne took a false shot and stepped over the ball without touching it.

The real penalty taker was Lin Quan, who took advantage of De Bruyne's cover and aimed for the top left corner of the goal and chose to hit the goal directly.

The opposing goalkeeper jumped high with all his strength, narrowly touched the ball with his hand, changed the direction of the ball slightly, and let the ball fly over the crossbar and out of the bottom line.

The Manchester City fans at the Etihad Stadium saw the flight trajectory of the ball and raised their hands to celebrate, but they didn't expect the opponent's goalkeeper to make a miraculous save and actually save the ball.

This made them sigh in unison and hugged their heads in frustration.

The opposing goalkeeper is also very excited, he can save the first person in the world to score a goal, this kind of thing can blow for a lifetime!

However, there is a saying that joy begets sorrow, and just when the goalkeeper was smug, Manchester City scored.

In the 59th minute, Manchester City took a corner kick, Lin Quan passed the ball to the back point, and the veteran Demichelis who came on as a substitute pressed the opposing defender, and a dragon swing tail header put the ball into the goal.

The opposing goalkeeper did not react to the goal, and the distance was too close for him to make a save.

Demichelis, who scored the goal, rushed to the sidelines excitedly, kissing the Manchester City emblem on his shirt as he ran.

Demichelis' contract with Manchester City expires this summer, and although Manchester City are interested in renewing his contract, Demichelis has refused.

He has played very little this season and staying in the team has helped the team very little other than to hinder the emergence of new talents.

In this case, it is better to leave Manchester City in style and go to a better place to retire.

Although Demichelis has not been with Manchester City for long, most of the accolades of his career have been won at Manchester City.

So for Manchester City, he still has a lot of feelings.

Considering his salary and contribution to the team, he decided to leave Manchester City.

Demichelis felt that he still had some oil in the tank and did not want to retire prematurely.

And the bad weather in Manchester is not a very comfortable place for an old player like him with an old injury.

He was a little nostalgic for the sunny beaches of the Iberian Peninsula, and his former club, Malaga, happened to have thoughts on him, so Demichelis planned to return to Malaga to retire.

Malaga are in the middle of La Liga, with no European tasks and no relegation pressure.

Playing here, his playing time is guaranteed, and there is not too much pressure on results, which is a very good choice for a 36-year-old veteran like him.

Therefore, Demichelis's celebration is actually telling Manchester City fans their choice.

After the fans in the stands saw Demichelis's move, they all stood up one by one and spontaneously applauded him.

Three years ago, when Demichelis joined Manchester City at the age of 33, he was met with some skepticism from the outside world.

Even many Manchester City fans have an opinion about him, these fans think that he came to Manchester City to retire, and Manchester City at that time still lacked major honors, and they wanted the kind of young players who were young and strong and could play for the team.

Don't want this kind of veteran who is about to retire!

However, in his first season on the job, Demichelis changed perceptions of him.

He really didn't come to retire, although he was old, but he was not old, and when Manchester City's backline was weak, he saved the team with several key saves.

Manchester City's two Champions League trophies are definitely due to Demichelis.

For such a meritorious player, he is leaving, and Manchester City fans are not only reluctant, but also more blessings.

The first goal is coming, will the second be far away?

After breaking the deadlock, it was as if the players in Manchester City's front line had found their crosshairs.

In the 61st minute, Lin Quan split the ball in front of the penalty area to Son Xingmin on the right side, who shot diagonally in the penalty area, and the ball hit the left post and bounced into the net.

2:0！

The aggregate score became 5:1!

Manchester City sealed the win and secured a ticket to the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Dynamo Kyiv, who fell behind by a large score, still did not give up the attack, even if they knew that there was no hope of promotion, they did not want to admit defeat.

In the 82nd minute, Dynamo Kyiv ushered in the best opportunity.

Rudiger made a defensive mistake and allowed the opposing striker to complete the turn and form a one-on-one knife.

However, Keylor Navas made a brilliant save to keep his opponent out of the door from close range.

The save was a demoralisation blow to the opposition, and the Dynamo Kyiv players couldn't find another chance to threaten the City goal for the next ten minutes.

In the end, the score was fixed at 2:0, and Manchester City defeated their opponents twice and advanced to the quarterfinals.

The game wasn't the highlight of the round, but it was watched by a huge crowd, just slightly less than Barcelona's home game against Arsenal, and the second most watched game of the round.

The reason why there are so many spectators watching this game is entirely because the two teams played offensive football in this game, which made the game full of spectacle.

Looking at the technical statistics after the game, the two sides only completed a total of 39 shots on goal in the whole game.

Manchester City contributed 21 of them, while their opponents also completed 18.

Judging from the number of shots, the two teams can be described as half a catty, and the gap is not so big.

However, in terms of shots on target, Manchester City had a total of eight shots on target, while their opponents only had four, which was more than double.

This also proves that although Manchester City are missing two big defenders, they still did a pretty good job defensively in this game.

The opponent had a lot of shots, but most of them failed to pose a threat, and the attack was lackluster.

In terms of possession, Manchester City did not have much advantage, with only 52% possession and 48% possession of their opponents.

That's quite a remarkable number, and very few teams, even the big clubs, have fallen so little behind in possession against Manchester City.

From these data, it can be seen that Dynamo Kyiv is indeed not a weak brigade!

It's just a pity that they had bad luck and met Manchester City.

If you meet other weaker teams, maybe you still have a chance.

(End of chapter)