Manchester City's woes in the Champions League continued as the English Premier League side let a lead slip, allowing Juventus to walk away from the Etihad with a 2-1 victory.
City have not been able to get past the last 16 stage for the last four seasons in the Champions League – they failed to get past the group stages in their first two seasons – and having been drawn in the toughest group of the Champions League this season, the last thing they could afford was an opening loss at home, even against last campaign's runners-up.
After Manchester City went 1-0 up early in the second half with a controversial Giorgio Chiellini own goal, it looked like being the home team's game.
However, Juventus had other ideas and Mario Mandzukic equalised for Juventus, after taking a pass from Paul Pogba and finishing nicely off the post, before the nail in the Manchester City coffin was hammered down by Alvaro Morata, whose brilliant strike from just outside the box gave Juventus all three points.
Juventus will say the points are deserved as well, considering the opening goal should have never stood. Vincent Kompany climbed all over Chiellini off a corner with the ball striking the Italian on its way to goal.
But, Juventus, who have made an awful start to life in the Premier League, showed what champion teams are made of, finding a way back, with both their strikers getting on the scoresheet.
"We should give the credit to the players -- it wasn't easy but we did what we had to do," Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri was quoted as saying by UEFA's official website.
"We could have done better in the first half, we did not concede that much ground and Buffon was extraordinary. In the second half we were better, especially up front.:
Manchester City will look back at this game and question their finishing, with Raheem Sterling missing a couple of glorious chances, while Wilfried Bony and David Silva had presentable opportunities as well, with Gianluigi Buffon standing tall for Juve. Without a shadow of a doubt, they missed the services of Sergio Aguero, who came on late in the game, but just did not have enough time make an impact.
"It was a strange game," Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini said. "I don't think we deserved to lose. We played better than Juventus.
"We had three clear opportunities to score. Buffon made some very good saves and we were very unlucky, especially for the first [Juventus] goal. We controlled the game.
"When we have chances we must score. The differences are very slight, especially against a strong team like Juventus. Maybe Juventus didn't create so many chances, but they finished well."
