Manchester City won the UEFA Super Cup for the first time on Wednesday but needed penalties to beat Sevilla after a 1-1 draw in Athens.<\/p>\n
Youssef En-Nesyri\u2019s towering first-half header gave the Spaniards the lead.<\/span><\/p>\n European champions City were far from their slick best, but hit back to force the game to penalties through Cole Palmer\u2019s header.<\/span><\/p>\n City were then perfect from the spot and prevailed 5-4 in the shootout after Sevilla defender Nemanja Gudelj smashed against the bar.<\/span><\/p>\n Pep Guardiola has bemoaned his side\u2019s lack of preparation for the new season and it showed under the baking heat in the Greek capital.<\/span><\/p>\n City badly missed the creative presence of Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva through a combination of injury and illness.<\/span><\/p>\n A four-month absence for De Bruyne due to a serious hamstring injury has exacerbated the loss of firepower offered by Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez since last season.<\/span><\/p>\n West Ham\u2019s Brazilian international Lucas Paqueta has been linked with a move to the Etihad and this performance may serve as further proof City need to strengthen before the end of the transfer market.<\/span><\/p>\n Sevilla began their La Liga season with a disappointing 2-1 home defeat to Valencia.<\/span><\/p>\n But just as they did last season in lifting a seventh Europa League despite a 12th-placed league finish, they rose to the big occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n Sevilla goalkeeper Yassine Bounou was playing what is expected to be his final game for the club before a move to Saudi side Al Hilal.<\/span><\/p>\n The Moroccan international denied City a perfect start when he clawed away Nathan Ake\u2019s powerful header that was destined for the bottom corner.<\/span><\/p>\n But Guardiola\u2019s men soon became ponderous in possession and were punished on 25 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Manchester City won the UEFA Super Cup for the first time on Wednesday but needed penalties to beat Sevilla after a 1-1 draw in Athens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1592,1444,7469],"class_list":["post-14960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-man-city","tag-sevilla","tag-uefa-super-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14962,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14960\/revisions\/14962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}