Guardiola's return, Man City's defiance - and a game of glorious chaos
Manchester City returned to the welcoming surroundings of home for the first time since being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations awash with defiance and presenting an 'us against the world' united front.
Pep Guardiola was back at the place he decorated with success for a decade in a public show of support to embattled chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and chief executive Ferran Soriano, the Catalan a low-key presence clad in a flat cap sitting a row behind the pair.
If his appearance was relatively under the radar, the fact that he chose a game certain to attract a global audience to make his return was heavy with significance.
Guardiola is ignoring the outside noise to back his former bosses to clear their name on appeal after the guilty verdict passed down by an independent commission.
The stand bearing his name was emblazoned with a 'CTID' - City 'Til I Die - mosaic, while the build-up to kick-off saw a display of fireworks and pyrotechnics worthy of several rock concerts.
The strategy to show an unabashed City ready to face down any enemy was going well, until the game kicked off and Champions League holders Paris St-Germain produced a ruthless first-half reality check cloaked within the brutal beauty of their football.
With City providing a dramatic backdrop off the pitch, the game more than matched the setting. A second-half revival ensured embarrassment was avoided - and instead gave us a classic.
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City's first step back into the limelight on the hostile territory of Anfield on Sunday ended with a 3-0 win at Liverpool and wild celebrations.
Here, with Guardiola watching on from the directors' box with an agonised expression mirroring that of successor Enzo Maresca in his technical area, City ran headlong into a whirlwind of magnificent football from Luis Enrique's PSG, the half-time scoreline of 3-0 actually doing them a kindness.
To City's great credit, and also Maresca's after he made three half-time changes, they responded superbly after the break, creating a host of chances before eventually losing 4-2.
It did not retrieve what was lost in the first half, but it did at least allow City's fans to ramp up a frenzied atmosphere and give their team a rousing send-off at the final whistle.
In these surroundings, there was no question of any backlash against City's Abu Dhabi-based owners, despite the fact they were found guilty of such serious financial charges to leave the club in crisis and attracting pariah status.
The damage was done in PSG's staggering opening 45 minutes, with Desire Doue, Ousmane Dembele and Vitinha the scorers as City were ripped apart.
A game that began in a wall of sound, with Guardiola's name resounding around the stadium at kick-off, was reduced to stunned silence in the first 15 minutes.
City, so composed and ordered amid the toxicity of Anfield on Sunday, were shell-shocked on home territory as even born streetfighters such as Enzo Fernandez were reduced to chasing shadows.
The players who rose in the face of the storm raging around Manchester City at Liverpool suddenly looked like they were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, which made their outstanding display after the break even more praiseworthy.
Guardiola looked just as engaged as when he was manager
Erling Haaland gave City hope, which looked to be snuffed out when goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who had a very poor night against his former club, saved from Maghnes Akliouche, only to see the ball drop behind him into the net.
Guardiola sometimes looked just as engaged as he did when he prowled the touchline here at Etihad Stadium, collecting the trophies now being called into question.
When Josko Gvardiol had a header cleared off the line Guardiola clutched his face in anguish. When Haaland scored a goal that threatened to offer City an unlikely lifeline, he remained seated but pumped his fists into the air.
If the Catalan was a neutral observer, he would have relished a game of glorious chaos, the first half embellished by PSG before City mounted superb momentum after the break.
As a lover of pure football with the emphasis placed firmly on attack, he may have enjoyed it anyway. The post-match discussion with Maresca would certainly have had a busy agenda.
Maresca felt he saw enough to give City hope should they meet PSG again later in the Champions League, despite the manner in which they were dismantled in the first half.
"I really like playing against PSG because they are brave," said Maresca. "We know the way they want to press. They go man-to-man and they are very dynamic on the ball. They are the best team in Europe. They play fantastic football.
"But I think we are there. The reason why we struggled was because we conceded two early goals so quickly. When you are on the pitch you might think this is difficult, but in the second half we created enough to maybe deserve something.
"We feel sorry for the first half but I think we're quite happy now."
'Goals, goals and more goals'
Former Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha, watching for Match of the Day, described it as "great entertainment", but "not a normal game of football".
"I don't feel like both teams were going at it at the same time," he said. "In the first half, PSG were excellent and City looked really off the pace. As a consequence they were heavily punished and the game basically left them.
"But then in the second half they have made some changes, they have rallied, knowing they are playing in front of their own crowd and their performance had to be better. So, it was more aggressive and more on the front foot, and that's why we saw those crazy scenes where it was shot after shot by City.
"If these two teams had played this game in matchweek six or seven, it would not have looked like this. There would have been more defensive solidity from both sides and they would probably have approached the game in a different manner.
"But at this stage, as we have kind of seen with some of the other games tonight, it is just goals, goals and more goals."
Either way, the superb Enrique remains the scourge of the Premier League, adding another win against City to a Champions League victims list that includes Liverpool, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, in a semi-final then last season's final.
Enrique is currently master of all he surveys in Europe as leader of this wonderful PSG team.
For Maresca and City, it is back to domestic business at home to Ipswich Town on Saturday – and all the uncertainty that brings with the Premier League in a state of limbo as they await sanctions and the result of their appeal.
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