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Manchester City and Liverpool are the only English sides to have completed a flawless group stage campaign in the UEFA Champions League.
On Wednesday, December 13, the Cityzens defeated Crvena Zvezda 3-2 to complete the group stage with six victories out of six. Prior to travelling to Serbia, Pep Guardiola’s team had already advanced to the Round of 16 as group winners, thus they wrapped up their group stage campaign in fine fashion.
On his senior debut, winger Micah Hamilton put the visitors ahead after 20 minutes, and 17 minutes inside the second half, fellow 20-year-old Oscar Bobbs doubled the lead.
Crvena cut down on arrears by 14 minutes with Hwang In-beom. However, Kelvin Phillips made up for his error in the development towards Crvena’s goal during the 85th minute by scoring from the penalty spot to give City a two-goal advantage again.
Despite Aleksandar Katai’s goal in the ninety-first minute setting up an exciting finish, City held on to make Champions League history. Since Liverpool achieved it in 2021–22, their flawless group stage performance is the very first from an English team and the second overall. Since placing second in 2016–17, Guardiola’s team has won their group in the Champions League for seven consecutive years.
Pep Guardiola, the manager of Manchester City, is ecstatic after his drastically altered team defeated Liverpool in an antagonistic environment to win all three points and enter an elite club.
Guardiola saw his team take the lead in Serbia and did not look back, even if Crvena mounted a late comeback. Guardiola made many changes from the starting lineup that defeated Luton Town 2-1 during the Premier League the previous Saturday.
He said, “”It was a hard-fought match, physically demanding with a lot of man-on-man contact,” said the Spaniard to UEFA (via BBC). “But I am happy with what we achieved and how the team performed. People sometimes write off these games as not essential for us, but it’s the exact opposite. Every win counts.”
