Didi Hamann fears Manchester City’s ‘ridiculous and scandalous’ Champions League blunder in Munich will cost his old club millions of pounds.
City beat European champions Bayern Munich 3-2 at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday but did not send on leading scorer Sergio Aguero to chase the one goal they needed to top Group D because manager Manuel Pellegrini thought his team had to score another two.
Instead of finishing ahead of Bayern on the head-to-head ruling following their 3-1 defeat by the Germans at the Etihad in October, City ended up second. They are now almost certain to be paired with one of the heavyweights of European football in Monday’s draw for the first knockout round.
‘It’s a cock-up,’ said Hamann on Wednesday. ‘It shouldn’t have happened. The whole City coaching staff haven’t covered themselves in glory here. It’s a poor effort.
‘They say the manager is only as good as his backroom staff. He must have had six, seven, eight people around him. For none of them to know and make him aware of the magnitude another goal would have is ridiculous and scandalous in a way.
Even a player doesn’t go to the manager and say, “Bring Aguero on”.’
Interviewed by the radio station talkSPORT radio, Hamann added: ‘It looks like in the last 16 they are going to face Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona or Real Madrid.
‘City have a belief they have a chance of winning it but, if they’d won the group they would have faced Basle, Schalke, Leverkusen, Zenit St Petersburg or Porto. They’d have had a bye.
‘Bayern made £60-£70million by winning the Champions League. Going out at the last 16 could cost millions of pounds.’
Pellegrini’s lack of awareness was even more embarrassing because the club’s Twitter feed pointed out they only needed one more goal to go through as group winners
The tweet read: ‘If City were to score another and win 4-2, we’d win the group! City fans roaring their team on . . . ’
However, James Milner, scorer of City’s third goal, believes they have proved they can beat any team.
Bayern were on a record 10-game winning run in the Champions League and had conceded just twice in the competition this season.
‘We’ll take anyone in the next round,’ said Milner.
A similar incident resulted in Manchester City’s relegation in the 1995-96 season, with Alan Ball in charge at Maine Road.
Battling against relegation and playing Liverpool on the final day of the season, City conceded two own-goals before drawing level through Uwe Rosler and Kit Symons.
World Cup winner Ball knew his side needed to do better than Southampton and Coventry to survive – so when he got word that Wimbledon were beating Saints late on he instructed City to play out time.
Steve Lomas was playing keep ball near the corner flag when the recently substituted Niall Quinn ran out of the tunnel to tell his team-mates otherwise – Wimbledon were not winning.
But it was too late to find a winner, and City were relegated. Ball (below) left the club three games into the following season in Division One
Written by Steve Milne – Have your say below
