Manchester City lost at Dortmund 1-0 to exit the Champions League last night.

The only goal of the game came through a close-range effort from Julian Schieber, but in truth the Germans champions could have won by a bigger margin.

Exit

Prior to the Dortmund game City knew that they couldn’t qualify for the knockout stages, as they were trailing Real Madrid and Dortmund by too big a margin. However, Roberto Mancini’s team had a chance of finishing third and clinching a place in the Europa League knockout stages.

City couldn’t even manage to secure the consolation of a place in UEFA’s second tier European competition. The defeat really was a miserable end to what has been a terrible campaign in the Champions League for the English champions.

Questions

It’s the second consecutive season that City have gone out of the Champions League at the group stage. Questions will now be asked about Roberto Mancini’s ability to achieve the clubs goals in UEFA’s flagship competition. The Italian failed in European competition at Inter and he is doing exactly the same at City.

Comparison

When you compare City’s performance to that of another mega-rich club PSG, then they really have fallen down in the Champions League. The French side finished top of their group in just their first season in the Champions League.

However, the Parisians looked like a far more developed team than their English counterparts. PSG may have had a somewhat easier group than City, but they still managed to qualify from the group stages with ease, a feat that will have left everybody connected with City looking on with envious glances.

Champions League results:

Group A

Dinamo Zagreb 1-1 Dinamo Kiev

PSG 2-1 FC Porto

Group B

Montpellier 1-1 Schalke

Olympiakos 2-1 Arsenal

Group C

Malaga 2-2 Anderlecht

AC Milan 0-1 Zenit

Group D

Dortmund 1-0 Manchester City

Real Madrid 4-1 Ajax

Can Dortmund go all the way in this season’s Champions League?