'I'm ex-Man City star who stunned Pep Guardiola - now I face them in Champions League'
Vladimir Weiss is hoping to land another major shock when Slovan Bratislava host Guardiola’s all-conquering Manchester City in the Slovak club’s first-ever Champions League home tie
by Simon Mullock · The MirrorVladimir Weiss once outshone Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to help Manchester City beat Pep Guardiola ’s Barcelona in the Nou Camp.
Now, 15 years later, he is hoping to land another major shock when Slovan Bratislava host Guardiola’s all-conquering City in the Slovak club’s first-ever Champions League home tie. Weiss, now aged 34, stars alongside another former City starlet, Robbie Mak, in a Slovan team that is managed by his father, also called Vladimir.
Weiss and Mak, who were part of the City team that won the FA Youth Cup in 2008, never quite made the grade at the Etihad after Sheikh Mansour’s money transformed the club from nearly-men to European champions. But the attacking midfielder has fond memories of his time in Manchester - including the night he shocked Guardiola in Barca’s annual Joan Gamper Trophy challenge in the summer of 2009.
Martin Petrov scored City’s winning goal and Richard Dunne lifted the trophy in front of 94,000 stunned Catalans - but it was teenager Weiss who really stole the show with a man-of-the match performance that even put Messi in the shade.
Weiss said: “I enjoyed my time in Manchester and I still have some friends in the city. Of course, the club has changed beyond all recognition since I was there - but I will always remember when we beat Barcelona in the Nou Camp.
“They won the Champions League the previous season and it was expected that we would just turn up and lose the game. It was only a friendly but it was quite a big occasion for Barca. They had Messi and Ibra - and I also remember Yaya Toure played that night.
“City had signed Robinho and Carlos Tevez had just joined the club, but they were only at the start of the journey. To now play City in the Champions League is, for me personally, a dream come true.
“I moved to England when I was only 15 after a transfer to Arsenal fell through. It was very tough and I cried a lot because I missed home. But the club always helped me a lot to settle down.”
Weiss had loan spells at Bolton, Rangers and Espanyol before playing in Greece and Qatar. He joined his dad at Slovan in 2020 - and the club qualified for the group stages for the first time by beating FC Midtjylland 4-3 on aggregate in the qualifiers.
They are only the fourth Slovakian team to reach this stage of the competition - and they were given a harsh lesson in the opening game when they were thrashed 5-1 at Celtic.
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