Lyon stuns Man City 3-1 to reach Champions League semifinals

Lyon stunned Manchester City to reach the Champions League semifinals for the first time in a decade, with Moussa Dembélé scoring twice for the French outsiders Saturday to seal a 3-1 win in Lisbon, Portugal that sets up a meeting with Bayern Munich.

City, one of the most expensively assembled squads in football history, lost to the team that finished seventh in the French league and needs to lift the European Cup for the first time to return to the competition next season.

It leaves Pep Guardiola without a Champions League title since 2011 with Barcelona, falling short in three attempts with Bayern Munich and never making it past the quarterfinals in his four seasons at City.

Guardiola's decision to deploy an unfamiliar five-man defense to match Lyon's system backfired when gaping holes were left at the back before Maxwel Cornet struck the opener in the 24th minute.

Kevin De Bruyne equalized in the 69th but substitute Dembélé restored the lead 10 minutes later after being on the pitch for only four minutes. Then came the moment to level that will haunt Raheem Sterling, who blazed the ball over an empty net, and a minute later Dembélé scored again.

“We need to learn — it's not good enough and that's it," De Bruyne said. “Different year, same stuff."

City's biggest Champions League win of the season, though, came off the pitch when its lawyers overturned a two-season ban from European competitions.

But for a City side that eliminated record 13-time champion Real Madrid in the previous round, losing to Lyon was not in the script.

“This team is great," De Bruyne said, “but we make too many mistakes.”

City should have been well aware of Cornet's threat. He scored three goals against the then-Premier League champions across the two group stage games last season.

Although City began to find more space to attack, the only threat came from De Bruyne's free kicks.

“We scored a magnificent goal but unfortunately we missed another one," Guardiola said. "You have to be perfect, you cannot make mistakes.”