Champions League Last 16: Two Potential Upsets
Published: 16th March 2025
– Updated: 16th March 2025
With the Champions League last 16 draw complete, which clubs have the potential to cause an upset and progress to the last 8? Today Jonathan Wilson tells us why Man City and Basel could well cause a surprise this season.
Man City over Barcelona
Seasons can be turned on the most irrational moments. For 445 minutes of the group stage of this season's Champions League, Manchester City were abject. They thrashed about, unable to beat a very ordinary CSKA Moscow side, struggling to beat a Bayern Munich team that played for over an hour with 10 men. Fans booed the Uefa anthem and seemed generally uninspired by the competition. But Sergio Aguero's two goals in the final five minutes against Bayern to give City a 3-2 win at last gave City a defining performance in the Champions League, and gave them the momentum to go on and, without their spine of Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Aguero, beat Roma 2-0 in Rome with a performance of great intelligence and controlled aggression. For the first time, City looked at home in the competition.
They would almost certainly have rather avoided Barca but on the other had this is a quick opportunity to put right what went wrong last year. They were criticised in some quarters for their caution in the first leg and perhaps they did offer too much respect to a Barcelona side that was nowhere near as good as their predecessors of two or three years earlier. But even allowing for that, they were in control of the game until a slightly unfortunate ricochet after Jesus Navas had been dispossessed led to Lionel Messi getting in behind Martin Demichelis, who ended up bringing him down, conceding a penalty and being sent off. At that, the game and ultimately the tie was lost.
City have shown signs in recent weeks of finding some sort of form and, while much will depend on the fitness of Aguero – although Edin Dzeko did play a key role in Rome as a tireless lone forward – there's no reason why they should not trouble Barcelona. Last season's ties, at least, should have shown them that
