MANCHESTER, England — Enzo Maresca said he believes Manchester City are “close” to the level of Paris Saint-Germain despite losing 4-2 to the reigning European champions on Wednesday.
The back-to-back Champions League winners raced into a 3-0 lead at the Etihad Stadium after a blistering first-half performance.
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City improved after the break, scored twice through Erling Haaland and ended the night with 27 shots on goal. It was enough for Maresca to insist afterwards that his team are not far away from being able to match Luis Enrique’s side.
“I think we are there, my feeling is we are close,” Maresca said. “It has been a bit of a strange game especially because we conceded two goals in two minutes [in the first half] and that created some problems for us.
“Before the first goal we didn’t concede anything, then we conceded the second one. In the second half we did enough to deserve something more.”
Despite going three goals down in the first half, City threatened a remarkable comeback after the break.
The final scoreline looked comfortable for PSG, but Maresca said afterwards that Luis Enrique acknowledged his team had been fortunate to survive the second-half onslaught.
“Luis told me at the end they have been quite lucky,” Maresca said.
“I think in the last two years they have been the best team in Europe, they won almost all the games in this competition in the last two years.”
