Manchester City remain unbeaten in Australia after defeating AS Roma on penalties at the MCG in the second game of the 2015 International Champions Cup.
All eyes were on Raheem Sterling as he opened a new chapter in his career at Manchester City, while young players Kelechi Iheanacho, Bruno Zuculini and Manuel Garcia made an appearance too.
The most expensive English player in history didn’t disappoint as he opened the scoring and got his first goal in Sky Blue after just three minutes.
Nigerian youngster Iheanacho played an exquisite ball to Sterling after fending off two opponents, the offside calls were waved away and Sterling finished coolly into the bottom corner to score on debut.
A dream start for City, until Bosnian Miralem Pjanic smoked in a terrific shot from 30 yards after Gervinho’s back pass, and it was all square in Melbourne.
Less than 10 minutes in and there had already been more action than Real Madrid’s entire 90 minutes.
After that, City seemed to dominate the midfield, with Spaniard David Silva strutting his stuff, skipping past players and putting in key passes the entire first half.
It was very much an end-to-end game with Francesco Totti and Gervinho the only players to get some chances on goal for Roma as Manchester City asserted their dominance against the Roman kings.
The first half came to a close level. Iheanacho impressed in the first half, linking up well with Silva, Sterling and Fernando to create some great chances as City charged at the Roman defence.
Roma tested City early in the second half with a lot of space open on the left but Adem Ljajic and Gervinho were unfortunately unable to capitalise on the space.
It only took five minutes to break the deadlock as young gun Iheanacho pounced on a horrible back pass form Ashley Cole and blasted it past the Roma keeper, once again proving his spot in the middle of the park.
Roma were only getting half chances through free-kicks but were exploiting that left hand side, with Ljajic receiving three chances in around seven minutes, but unable to convert any.
That was until Seydou Doumbia went down outside the box and Ljajic capitalised finally with a peach of a free kick and a very deserved goal in the 87th minute. The match finished all square with a penalty shoot-out to follow.
It was all even in the shoot-out until substitute Aleksandar Kolarov sent his penalty to the moon to put the Romans in front.
Then Joe Hart, the hero of the match, sent his penalty into the roof of the net, before saving Doumbia’s panenka attempt. He then easily saved a poor penalty from Seydou Keita to give Manchester City the win.
Only Real Madrid stands in their way now, and with top dogs Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale rested for the match, it’s sure to have some fireworks.
Man of the match: Joe Hart for his penalty and shootout saves, Kelechi Iheanacho for his assist and goal.
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