Manchester City became the first English side not to win a single game in the group stages of the Champions League by falling to a 1-0 defeat at Borussia Dortmund this evening.
Julian Schieber scored the only goal of the game in the second half to deny the Citizens a Europa League berth, adding insult to injury.
Here, Sports Mole takes a closer look to see if the result was fair.
Match statistics:
Borussia Dortmund:
Shots 15
On target 7
Possession 48%
Corners 3
Fouls 7
Manchester City:
Shots 6
On target 4
Possession 52%
Corners 7
Fouls 10
Was the result fair?
Yes. It took time for Dortmund to wake up in the first half, but once they did it was clear that they carried more of an attacking threat. They bossed the second half and never looked like conceding.
Dortmund's performance
7/10. It wasn't a vintage performance by any means. They lacked intensity to their play in the early stages of the game and City were allowed far too much of the ball. There were a lot of misplaced passes as well. Dortmund were more assured after the break and began to dominate possession. Jakub Blaszczykowski was a threat down the right, and made a wonderful assist for Julian Schieber's solitary goal. It was a teasing one that cut out Vincent Kompany with inch-perfect precision, allowing the striker to gleefully slide in for the winner. Mats Hummels was brilliant in defence, as was Marcel Schmelzer. Youngsters Oliver Kirch and Moritz Leitner will be glad of the game time in Europe's top competition and didn't let anyone down. Ivan Perisic was also very busy.
Man City's performance
4/10. There was no passion from City tonight. Even if they were not bothered about qualifying for the Europa League, they should have wanted to sign off a disappointing campaign with a win. They started better but, for all their possession, there was very little thrust. It was a rather laboured effort and they were rightly punished as the game wore on. Edin Dzeko looked isolated, while Carlos Tevez went through the motions a bit. Sergio Aguero played well when he came on, but Mario Balotelli put in another blase performance. He came in for a few boos from the crowd, probably due to his terrific performance against Germany in Euro 2012.
Sports Mole's man of the match
Mats Hummels: Strong in defence, as usual, while also marauding forward at times. A lot like David Luiz, but not as erratic.
Biggest gaffe
It wasn't a calamity, but the game was short on glaring errors. Moritz Leitner snatched at an effort that he didn't really expect to come to him. It was a decent chance.
Referee performance
Milorad Mazic was not given much to do tonight. The only time he got his yellow card out was for Mario Balotelli, and he was right in doing so. The Italian petulantly slammed the ball into the floor after (somewhat) inadvertently elbowing Felipe Santana as they went up for a header.
What next?
Borussia Dortmund: Die Borussen advance to the knockout stage as group winners. They welcome Wolfsburg to the Westfalenstadion in the Bundesliga on Saturday.
Manchester City: The Citizens bow out of the competition at the group stage for the second year running. Their attention will now switch to Sunday's derby with rivals Manchester United.
Michael Penkman
