Manchester City – Bayer Leverkusen, Getty Images November 25, 2025, 11:52 p.m

The season of club football continues to gather momentum, and in particular, in the UEFA Champions League, shortly before the beginning of the November international break, we managed to cross the equator of the main round, and therefore already had certain schedules for each of the teams in the context of the further struggle. Someone overcame this initial period better, someone worse. And in the end, representatives of these two categories, English Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen, respectively, crossed each other in the fifth round in a match at the Etihad.

But just over an hour before the start of the game, the local audience was in for an unpleasant surprise from the head coach of the “townsmen” Josep Guardiola. The Spaniard decided that the main composition of his team had already shown everything in the unsuccessful game against Newcastle (1:2), so he decided to give almost all those players of the example of the match at St. James’s Park a rest, while the representatives of the so-called “reserve” met against a fully fighting composition of Kasper Ullmann’s team, which, however, had almost minimal opportunities for rotation.

In the first minutes, it seemed that even with such a combination of performers, City is able to calmly overcome the opponents, without losing at the same time in the combination game. However, it was only the opening shock of the visitors lasting about a quarter of an hour, during which Bayer allowed the hosts to create only a moment with Ake’s shot from the rebound at the end of a corner from the left wing early in the game, which was parried by Flecken, and nothing more.

And then for Guardiola’s team it was time to check the interaction in defense, and here the situation turned out not to be in favor of Manchester City. He was caught during a quick counterattack through the right flank by the efforts of Maz in the 23rd minute, who passed the free-kick to Kofane, who had already dropped Grimaldo’s shot into the right corner. It is not difficult to guess that after this success, Bayer closed in the defense in their own half, and if you do not take into account the moment of the Rangers with a shot just at the goalkeeper at the end of the first half, the “pharmacists” showed themselves perfectly before the break.

And in the second half of the game, there was nothing left, except to state that City’s attempts to return to the game with a triple substitution after the break did not lead to anything. Yes, the home team had more and more ball at their feet with each passing minute, but what difference does it make if the next goal in this game was scored by the visiting team. In the 54th minute, Maza made a pass to Shik, who headed home in his signature style.

The situation became critical, and therefore Guardiola decided to burn two more, the last at his disposal, substitutes. And what? Holland found his moment immediately after appearing on the field – fell out to meet the goalkeeper under Sherky’s pass to the central entrance to the penalty area, but did not beat it. Flekken was generally not beaten by any City player in this game. But even Poku, who in the last minute of regular time, of course, accidentally cut off another flank pass from the opponents into his own goal, did not manage to beat the goalkeeper.

In the next round, England’s Manchester City will visit Real Madrid, while Bayer Leverkusen will host England’s Newcastle.

Bayer: Flecken — Kwansa, Bade, Belosyan — Poku, Arthur, Maza, Grimaldo — Tillman, Kofane (Tella, 83) — Chic.

Warning: Grimaldo, Cofane