Last night's 1-1 draw with RSL saw some excellent sustained pressure from CITY but ultimately left the fans disappointed with only getting a point at home. Let's look first at RSL's goal from Sergi Solans:
RSL's Noel Caliskan collects the clearance by Baumgartl in the center of the pitch and heads upfield. You probably would have wanted Polvara to step to Caliskan to close the 30ft gap and cut down passing angles, but he didn't (a rare mistake from Polvara, who was otherwise awesome this match - especially in shutting down Luna completely).
Caliskan's entry pass found Saba Lobjanidze, who did a lovely job of holding the ball and rotating away from MacNaughton and Baumgartl. At that moment, his passing options were a backheel to Luna, who was all alone on the left, or a more difficult pass towards a cutting Solans.
Lobjanidze showed fantastic skill here, as he made a flicked pass around MacNaughton into the path of Solans, who had beaten Tomas Totland - Totland slowed up for just a split second as Lobjanidze received the ball, allowing Solans the inside space to make his run.
From here, Bürki is kind of in no-man's land - he reacts to the Lobjanidze pass, but you wonder if he even saw Solans cutting from his left - an onrushing Luna was more visible in front of him. Unfortunately for CITY, Solans made a nice play on the ball, cutting around Bürki and sliding it home.
CITY leveled on a terrible mistake from RSL. Let's Look at Marcel Hartel's equalizer:
Noel Caliskan played the ball back to GK Rafael Cabral, who had Philip Quinton available to his right (but who was marked by Becher). JSB was closing down on Cabral at an angle that made a pass to Samuel Junqua on the left impossible.
Instead, and probably inspired by Caliskan calling for the ball as he retreated towards his own end, Cabral played the ball centrally - intended for Caliskan but cut off by a charging Marcel Hartel, who began sprinting the moment Caliskan raised his hand in asking for the ball to be played back to him.
Hartel cuts in front, lets his momentum carry him and the ball away from Caliskan and flips it over Cabral to tie the match 1-1. Great read and reaction from Hartel to create the turnover and goal.
