AS Roma’s Francesco Totti celebrates the equaliser against Manchester City on Tuesday. (Source: Reuters )

Francesco Totti became the oldest scorer in European club competition history when he netted after 24 minutes to give AS Roma a 1-1 draw at Manchester City in their Champions League Group E match at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday.

Totti, who turned 38 on Saturday, chipped the ball over goalkeeper Joe Hart for his landmark goal which resulted in City failing to win their first home match in the competition for the fourth successive season.

City went ahead in the fourth minute when their former defender Maicon put his arm around Sergio Aguero and pulled him down leaving referee Bjorn Kuipers no alternative but to award the penalty which the Argentine swept home, sending Roma’s stand-in keeper Lukasz Skorupski the wrong way.

But they failed to build on that early advantage and although they played better in the second half when James Milner and Frank Lampard came on as substitutes, impressive Roma, who failed to win for the first time in seven matches this season, were worth their point.

One subplot saw Lampard, who came on for the last 33 minutes, face his old Chelsea team mate Ashley Cole, now at Roma.

Cole, playing his first match in England since moving to Italy in the close-season, told ITV Sport: “It was a good performance after going down so early in the game, we showed a lot of character, determination and belief and maybe should have won. We can be proud of ourselves today.”

City’s Milner was less happy.

“We never got up to speed. We didn’t do enough to win the game. We never got going in the first half, we got going a bit in the second half and maybe Lamps (Lampard) coming on helped a bit, we might have nicked it at the end, but didn’t.”

Roma, who have won all five of their Serie A games since the start of the season and beat CSKA Moscow 5-1 at home in their opening Champions League match two weeks ago, played some crisp, sharp football after falling behind, and were unlucky not to be on level terms almost immediately.

A quick break ended with Maicon, who began the move marauding down the right flank, smashing his angled shot against the bar.

Gervinho almost scored from a similar position at the end of the first half, but Hart did well to save his powerful shot.

City, third in the Premier League, needed a result after losing their Group E opener 1-0 at Bayern Munich, but were largely second best in the first half.

They cancelled out Roma’s creativity after the restart, but failed to find the breakthrough, although Lampard and their late substitute Stevan Jovetic had clear chances in the closing stages.

The draw left Bayern Munich, who won 1-0 in Moscow, top with six points, followed by Roma on four, City on one and CSKA bottom with no points.

The next matches are in three weeks when City visit CSKA and Roma host Bayern.