Manchester City narrowly retained three points from the home game against RB Leipzig in the Champions League. After two early goals from Loïs Openda, Manchester City scored three times: 3-2. Incidentally, both clubs were already assured of qualifying for the knockout stage, but Manchester City is now officially the group winner.
The start was thus for Leipzig. After a long kick from former Heracles Almelo goalkeeper Janis Blaswich, Openda got away from Manuel Akanji, allowing the former Vitesse forward to suddenly appear in front of goalkeeper Stefan Ortega. With a low shot to the right corner, he left Manchester City's goalkeeper with no chance.
Ortega, incidentally, was in the starting lineup for the first time since October 21 (in the Premier League against Brighton & Hove Albion); Ederson took a seat on the bench.
At 33 minutes, Openda fooled another defender. After a pass from Xavi Simons near the sideline, Openda ran away from Rúben Dias around the midfield. He made a lot of ground towards the opposition goal, where he still had to dodge Josko Gvardiol. He succeeded, then Openda chose the near post and put Leipzig ahead 0-2.
Manchester City, however, did not give up and completely came back into the game. A sharp pass from Phil Foden enabled Erling Haaland to make it 1-2; Foden himself scored the 2-2 after skillfully turning away from Mohamed Simakan in the penalty area. For Leipzig, substitute Fábio Carvalho thought he had scored, but his goal was disallowed for offside. On the other end, Julian Álvarez did score: 3-2. At that point, Simons was no longer on the field, as he had injured his shoulder and was substituted a quarter of an hour before time.
