Yesterday was the Champions League match between Manchester City vs. Bayern Munich. I was there, in Manchester, in the stadium, watching the match.

My brother is a City fan (and he was so before Mansour) and he watched some matches already, he also was in the stadium in the first match between those two teams. So I asked him if he could buy me a ticket for the rematch because I am a fan of Bayern München and he did just that.

We flew to Manchester on Tuesday with Ryan Air. That meant: Getting from Hamburg to Bremen with the train, then flying to Manchester Airport and going by train again to Piccadilly train station, then walking for about 5 minutes and checking in our hostel on Hilton Street.

Then we had to waste the rest of the day and the following before the match started. Especially Wednesday the time just didn't want to pass, it seemed. We walked around in Manchester from here to there and back, but it still was 7 hours before the match even started... so we continued to walk around some more. Slowly but surely the streets filled with more fans and guys who where selling merchandise. We each bought a scarf with one half showing the colours of Bayern and the other half showing the colours of ManCity. We payed 5 pounds each; later in a ManCity fan store we saw similar scarfs, but the feeling that it wasn't "official merchandise" became stronger. Ah well, what else can you expect from a random guy selling stuff on the street. At least the emblem of Bayern München looks pretty good, it even has the "ü" in the name.

At around 5 pm we traveled to the stadium because we had to get our tickets. We already ordered and payed them, but City didn't sent the tickets due to saftey reasons ("so they won't get lost on the way to you").

It was a pretty cold night and the hail sure didn't help to keep us warm, so we soon entered the stadium. It was cold here as well, but at least we where protected from the strong wind.

The match itself:
Of course I was hoping to see the top class Bayern Munich players, Ribéry, Robben, Kroos, Neuer... but all I got was Petersen, Contento, Alaba, Butt.
Now, I don't have anything against those players, but I traveled all the way from Germany to see and support my team (I had to support them secretly, because of course I was sitting among City fans), so I was hoping to see the best players the club has to offer.

Anyway, even before that match Bayern was undisputed as top of the group table, so I can understand the decision to give the most valuable players a rest. And the other players need some experience at international matches as well, right?

The game went as expected, City with a lot of ball posession, creating some good chances and taking the lead in the first half.
Second half didn't look any different and City scored a second goal.
Even though Bayern didn't create any real chances I still had the feeling that City wasn't THAT dominant in the match. I think against a better team that kind of performance wouldn't get City very far. Shows that they might be the best team in Premier League, but Champions League is a whole different league (also see Borussia Dortmund: Playing very well in the Bundesliga, but in the Champions League? They just aren't good enoug...)

Well, City won the match, but they still went out of Champions League, because Napoli won their match against Villareal. Funny side note: Manchester United lost against Basel and went out as well!