Jamie Carragher blasts ‘ridiculous’ Man City over Vinicius Jr banner

Jamie Carragher has called Manchester City supporters ‘ridiculous’ over their banner which mocked Vinicius Jr before their side’s 3-2 defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League. Pep Guardiola’s side now face a huge task in order to reach the Champions League knockout phase after they threw away the lead twice against Madrid at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night. Erling Haaland put City in front before Kylian Mbappe pulled Madrid level. Haaland scored his second from the penalty spot to restore City’s lead but Madrid were level again through Brahim Diaz in the 86th minute. Jude Bellingham then netted Madrid’s winner from close range in the second minute of injury time.

City must now overturn their 3-2 defeat on aggregate at the Bernabeu next Wednesday in order to reach the last-16 phase, where they would play either Atletico Madrid or Bayer Leverkusen. As the two teams walked out to the pitch, City’s fans unveiled a huge banner which showed Rodri kissing the Ballon d’Or trophy along with the message: ‘Stop crying your heart out.’. The banner was a clear dig at Madrid’s reaction to Vinicius Jr losing out to Rodri in the Ballon d’Or race, with the Spanish club boycotting the award ceremony last October.

‘It’s absolutely ridiculous, why would you do that?’ Carragher told CBS Sports when asked about the banner unveiled by City’s supporters. ‘I know having a laugh and a joke… but what do you gain from that? Even if it’s the fans, why annoy people? Why wind someone up? Do it at the end of the game if you’ve beat them and knocked them out. ‘I don’t know what you get out of it, what do you gain out of that?.

‘It’s not funny tonight, is it? I just don’t like it. You know what, if I was a Man City player… if I was coming out and say Steven Gerrard had won the Ballon d’Or and we were playing Real Madrid and he’d beaten one of their players, that’d annoy me if I was a Liverpool player. It’s like a jinx, I don’t like stuff like that. ‘Why wind up some of the best players in the world? Top-level footballers, I know Real Madrid acted like babies not going there [to the Ballon d’Or ceremony] but you act like the proper club.

‘Everyone laughed at Real Madrid not going to the Ballon d’Or when it was Vinicius Jr or Ancelotti not picking up the manager of the year, the whole team, that was embarrassing for a club like Real Madrid just because they haven’t won it in one season, someone else won the Ballon d’Or. ‘Man City don’t need to go to what they [Madrid] were doing – have the bit of class.’. For more stories like this, check our sport page.