Jamie Carragher has slaughtered Man City fans for mocking Vinicius Jr with a massive banner that spectacularly backfired.

The Etihad crowd unveiled a huge Oasis-inspired tifo before last night's Champions League knockout playoff first leg with Real Madrid, showing Rodri kissing the Ballon d’Or trophy along with the message: ‘Stop crying your heart out.’ The display was a clear swipe at the Spanish giants boycotting the ceremony last year after Vinicius Jr missed out on football's top individual prize.

But Vinicius Jr had the last laugh as Carlo Ancelotti's side twice fought back before Jude Bellingham silenced the home fans with a dramatic stoppage-time winner. To rub salt into the wounds, Vinicius Jr was crowned man of the match as the holders took a massive step towards the last 16 ahead of next week's return leg at the Bernabeu.

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Vinicius Jr admitted after the game that the banner fired him up and the Brazilian superstar even reacted to chants of "Where's your Ballon d'Or?" by pointing to the Champions League badge on the side of his shirt, representing the 15 European Cups Madrid have won. But Liverpool legend Carragher reckons the goading was classless as he debated the wind-up with Micah Richards in the CBS Sports studios.

Carragher blasted: "It’s absolutely ridiculous, why would you do that? I know having a laugh and a joke… but what do you gain from that? Even if it’s the fans, why annoy people? Why wind someone up? Do it at the end of the game if you’ve beat them and knocked them out. I don’t know what you get out of it, what do you gain out of that?

"It’s not funny tonight, is it? I just don’t like it. You know what, if I was a Man City player… if I was coming out and say Steven Gerrard had won the Ballon d’Or and we were playing Real Madrid and he’d beaten one of their players, that’d annoy me if I was a Liverpool player. It’s like a jinx, I don’t like stuff like that.

"Why wind up some of the best players in the world? Top-level footballers, I know Real Madrid acted like babies not going there [to the Ballon d’Or ceremony] but you act like the proper club.

"Everyone laughed at Real Madrid not going to the Ballon d’Or when it was Vinicius Jr or Ancelotti not picking up the manager of the year, the whole team, that was embarrassing for a club like Real Madrid just because they haven’t won it in one season, someone else won the Ballon d’Or. Man City don’t need to go to what they [Madrid] were doing – have a bit of class."