Remembering Joe's standout game for City in a showdown with Messi and Co

HART PLAYED THE GAME OF HIS LIFE IN BARCELONA

- JOE BRAY

BERT Trautmann played on with a broken neck in the cup final. City would not have won the Champions League last season but for Ederson's string of saves.

But perhaps the most memorable performance by a City goalkeeper will always be the night Joe Hart made it his personal mission to stop Lionel Messi at the Nou Camp.

City needed to win at Barcelona to progress in the Champions League last-16 back in 2015, having lost 2-1 at the Etihad in the first leg. Hart had saved a Messi penalty to keep City in with a chance of progressing, and followed it up with one of the best individual performances by a player at the club in years.

As Hart announced his retirement yesterday, which will come at the end of Celtic's season, City fans have taken to social media to remember their fan favourite between the sticks, who played an integral role in bringing the Blues from mid-table obscurity to domestic domination and later European Champions.

On that night in the Nou Camp in 2015, Hart made a remarkable 10 saves, of which five came from inside the area. He denied Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez three times each, all in one-on-one scenarios.

The City goalkeeper got up from nowhere to deny Messi on the turn, and then from a tight angle after a one-two with Andres Iniesta. Hart stood firm to deny Jordi Alba from Messi's smart through-ball, before pushing away Messi's effort from distance. Messi thought he had finally beaten Hart after sidestepping him near the byline, but the number one was there again to stop the shot.

That was when he prevented Neymar and Suarez efforts from going past him after Messi freed them both in space, Suarez congratulating him on the field after one particular stop.