Manchester City were faced with their first loss of the UEFA Women's Champions League group stage on Wednesday night, as they were defeated 3-0 by Barcelona.
Manchester City have completed the six-matchday group stage with five victories and one loss, ending the group stage with a quarter-final qualification as runners-up behind Barcelona.
Despite beating the Catalan side 2-0 on the opening matchday, City weren't able to get past Barcelona this time around and suffered a 3-0 defeat.
The defending champions went 1-0 up in the 44th minute through Claudia Pina after rather poor defending from the Sky Blues. Not long after halftime, the Cityzens went 2-0 down after a two-on-three battle saw Aitana Bonmati find the back of the net. Then, less than 10 minutes after Barca went 2-0 up, Alexia Putellas's strike was easily slotted into the goal to really seal the deal and gave her side a 3-0 scoreline.
The 3-0 loss comes as City's third defeat of the 24/25 season, coming alongisde 2-0 to Chelsea in the Women's Super League and then a 2-1 loss to Everton in the WSL only a few days ago.
While Manchester City have fallen short twice in a row could be seen as a worrying look, the Cityzens have still qualified for the quarter-finals of the Champions League and while they couldn't attain the top spot of the group despite being first for five games, they did display a strong performance in all of their matches.
Man City will be placed in pot two, along with Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Wolfsburg. While Pot one contains group winners, Barcelona, Chelsea, Arsenal and Lyon.
Gareth Taylor on the Barcelona defeat
"Amazing effort, we know we weren't functioning and effective, but you couldn't fault the effort of the players. It was tough, Barcelona set off at a really good pace at the start."
"You have to give credit to them, they're a top team, we're trying to do something similar and it takes time to build that."
"We were a little bit dysfunctional tonight (Wednesday night), the effort from the girls was first class."
"This game won't define us. We'll learn, get better, get players back, start to get stronger and will improve."