A failure to secure three points would see the Cityzens eliminated from an underwhelming 2024/25 CL campaign.
City won 3-1 to leapfrog Brugge into the top 24 of the league phase and secure a two-legged play-off round place for the right to progress to the Round of 16.
But don’t be misled on a tense night at the Etihad rarely has such a scoreline looked tenuous. City did it the hard way after going a goal down just before the break against a talented Brugge outfit who fully deserved the Raphael Onyedika goal after easily dealing with their host’s dominant possession.
Brugge were unbeaten in 19 games and their confidence showed. There is a fine line between patient build-up and simply too slow and City slipped into the latter during the first 45 minutes rarely troubling the keeper yet looking vulnerable to their visitors slick counter attacks.
Yet the introduction of Savinho for the second period and an increase in tempo finally paid dividends just when European football for this season looked over. Mateo Kovacic levelled then pressure forced an own goal from Joel Ordonez but we all know City’s record at defending a lead.
Twice this season in Europe they have thrown away two goal and three goal leads and if Brugge had taken their chances shortly after the leveller then this could have been a totally different result.
The tension was certainly getting to Pep Guardiola who was either kicking the water coolers, holding his head in his hands or getting a yellow card for protesting too much.
Savinho got his reward by adding a third after which some of the City swagger came back as they played possession football with confidence and easily saw out the remaining few minutes.
Brugge take the final qualifying spot which their performance warranted. As for City do they deserve to stagger over the line and qualify? Probably not. Will they care? Probably not!
