Manchester City advances in Champions League despite loss to FC Basel

March 7 (UPI) -- FC Basel beat Manchester City 2-1 on Wednesday at Etihad Stadium in England, but lost its Champions League matchup to the Sky Blues.

City midfielder Bernardo Silva had the prettiest play early on, finishing off an assist in the 8th minute by nutmegging two Basel defenders while finding Gabriel Jesus for the game's first score.

After that, the rest of the scoring came from the road team in the second leg of the round of 16 matchup. Basel evened the match at 1-1 in the 17th minute when defender Blas Riveros found Mohamed Elyounoussi in the middle of the box.

The Moroccan midfielder tapped the ball once to settle his placement, before ripping a shot into the near post netting, badly beating City keeper Claudio Bravo.

City and Basel went into halftime with a tie score.

Defender Michael Lang gave Basel a lead midway through the second stanza. Elyounoussi dribbled around the defense on the right side of the pitch before lacing a through ball into the box for the defender in the 71st minute. Lang wasted no time, running in and hitting the shot first touch, beating Bravo again at a narrow angle.

City won the round of 16 series 5-2 in aggregate scoring, after winning its first match against Basel 4-0 on Feb. 13 in Switzerland.

"We wanted to make sure that we got through to the next round and better ourselves from last season," City defender John Stones said after the match, according to ManCity.com.

"Being knocked out by Monaco last season hurt so we wanted to put things right this season."

"But we're not happy with how we played tonight. We wanted to win and see it through that way."

The Sky Blues join Real Madrid, Juventus and Liverpool in the quarterfinal round. Matchups for the next round will be announced on Friday.

"We are happy to be in the quarterfinals, we are so happy for that," City manager Pep Guardiola told reporters after the match. "Second half we didn't attack and forgot to even pass the ball... the second half was really really poor."